Hayley Mills Follows in Judi Dench’s Footsteps To Check Into Stage Version ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Hayley Mills ,still fondly remembered for Disney classics Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, is checking into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ,to take it on the road in the UK and then to London’s West End.Strictly speaking ,it’s a play based on the book (Deborah Moggach’s These Foolish Things) that spawned successful movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in 2011 and it’s 2015 sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Both pictures, starring Judi Dench ,Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy, did immensely well at the box-office.The screenplays for the films ,directed by John Madden, were written by Ol Parker .However ,for the stage Moggach has adapted her own tome about seven British retirees who depart the Home Counties of England to see out the sunset of their years at what they’re led to believe is a luxurious hotel in Bangalore,India.Show producer Simon Friend (The Father) told Deadline ”You’ll recognise the characters but I can’t stress enough that’s it’s not a play of the film.Though we have arranged to use the same title as the film because it’s undeniably recognisable.”Mills will play recently widowed Evelyn Greenslove,played by Dench on screen.It’s the second role Mills has taken that’s been associated with Dame Judi.

Mills was also in a stage adaptation of the 2004 film Ladies In Lavender, which featured the grand dames Dench and Smith.”I’m happy to be in Judi’s footsteps,” Mills told Deadline.Her father , John Mills (Ryan’s Daughter) starred with Dench in a 1974 musical theater production of J.B.

Priestley’s The Good Companions . “They became great friends. I adore her …my father absolutely adored her,” said Mills.Mills, who won an Academy award for her performance in Pollyanna ,in the days when there were