Rock icon Bob Geldof is collaborating on a stage musical about the global phenomenon that was Live Aid. The show, called Just For One Day, devised and directed by Luke Sheppard (currently represented on the West End via The Little Big Things @SohoPlace), will have its world premiere at the Old Vic Theatre in London early next year, running from 26 January - 30 March 2024.
Sheppard and book writer John O’Farrell (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget) are placing Live Aid “in the hands of the people who made it, who were there, who experienced it, even the fact that my mum was there and she’s told me a lot about it. That’s really influenced one of the characters in there as well. So, it’s Live Aid for the people essentially, as opposed to a kind of tribute act version of the show,” Sheppard stressed.
The show, Sheppard said, looks at Live Aid “from all angles, including from the technicians who are trying to pull off this satellite broadcast to the first-aid worker who was running the first-aid tent.”
Sheppard said that “we also look at it through the eyes of a guy called Bob who happened to be at the center of it all.”
Actor Craige Els takes on the Bob Geldof character. The BBC obtained this quote from the real Geldof on hearing that Craige Els will be playing him: "Let me be completely blunt. It's bad enough being Bob Geldof. It's slightly worse seeing someone else pretending to be you. The one upside for me is that he's got an amazing voice, stage Bob, so that people will think I actually sing as good as that."
Other casting includes Naomi Katiyo, Julie Atherton, Ashley Campbell, Jackie Clune, James Hameed, Hope Kenna, Freddie Love, Emily Ooi and Rhys Wilkinson. Further casting will be revealed later in the year.
The show’s creative team includes: musical supervision, arrangements and orchestration, Matthew Brind; choreography, Ebony Molina; set design, Soutra Gilmour; costumes, Fay Fullerton; lighting design, Howard Hudson; sound created by Gareth Owen; with video and animation by Andrzej Goulding. Casting is by Stuart Burt.