Brighton-based Stephen Mear has established himself internationally as the go-to choreographer for big classy stage musicals. Fresh from his triumph with Chess in the West End, he talks to Brian Butler about dyslexia, Strictly, and working with Stephen Sondheim.
THE history of the stage musical Chess is as chequered as its current set design at London’s Coliseum. A successful stint in the West End from 1986 to 1989 was long overshadowed by a Broadway disastrous run of two months following vast rewrites as US producers insisted that the American must beat the Russian at the end of Act One, and not as the story originally dictated.
