Cuba Gooding Jr makes his West End debut in Chicago (Picture: Amanda Malpass PR)

The Razzle Dazzle! Oscar winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr will tread the boards in London for the first time this spring in a new production of Chicago.

The American is the first actor announced from a rumoured all-star cast.

Cuba, 50, will play charismatic lawyer Billy Flynn in the world’s longest-running US musical, which returns to London this March after a five-year absence.

Cuba won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1996’s Jerry Maguire, where he played American football star Rod Tidwell opposite Tom Cruise.


In the Nineties the actor made his name in movies like Boyz In The Hood, A Few Good Men and As Good As It Gets, later starring in American Gangster, The Butler and 2014’s Selma.

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is taking on his first West End role (Picture: WireImage)

The actor has had a major TV resurgence lately in FX drama The People VS OJ Simpson, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Mini-series or a Movie.



Chicago opens 26 March at the Phoenix Theatre, and will follow The Exorcist when that closes.

Further casting has yet to be announced although Mollie King is rumoured to be starring either as vaudevillian Velma Kelly, or chorus girl Roxie Hart.

Chicago famously ran in London for 15 years until 2012, which made it the West End’s longest-running musical revival.

Christie Brinkley as Roxie Hart in London’s last version of Chicago back in 2011 (Picture: Getty Images)

Chicago first opened in 1975 on Broadway, and has gone on to become one of the most well-celebrated musicals of its time.

The crime comedy drama is set in Chicago in the iconic Roaring Twenties, when the sirens of the stage were as hot as the jazz. Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart are both imprisoned for murder, but plan to avoid the gallows by escaping, and becoming infamous.

The story was famously turned into a hit high-budget American movie, starring Catherine Zeta Jones, Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere in 2002.

The modern musical has been inspired by a 1926 play called Chicago, which documented the lives of actual criminals from the time.

The show is a satire on the criminal justice system, and the role of the celebrity in the glamorous Prohibition era. Chicago first opened in 1975 on Broadway.

Can’t wait until March? Stick on the ferociously fierce hit tunes, Razzle Dazzle, and All That Jazz and get your sass in line ready for the boldest musical in town.

Chicago returns to London 26 March at the Phoenix Theatre, and tickets are already on sale. Check Metro.co.uk for the latest Chicago casting announcements.

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