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Cheers, the stage play where everybody knows your name.

Sam, Diane & co. become the latest sitcom characters to take to the stage -in Boston, of course.

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Cheers is the latest US TV show to be turned into a stage play, following in the footsteps of shows such as Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, High School Musical, South Park, Smash and The Addams Family (originally a comic strip).

The stage version will be based on the first season of the hit sitcom after writer Erik Forrest Jackson, binge-watched all 22 episodes of the first season nine times (ouch!).

“I took season one of Cheers and put it all into a big pot and cooked it up and boiled it down,” he said. “The main through-line is the relationship between Sam and Diane but done in a way so it feels fresh.”

Because it focusses on the first season it means there will be no sign of Woody, Frasier or Rebecca. While the latter is understandable given Kirsty Alley’s character replaced Shelley Long, I’m surprised at leaving Woody and Frasier out of the mix.

The cast of 14 actors obviously won’t include any original cast members but it will include the much-loved theme song and members of the audience as bar patrons dressed in 1980s fashions. Fittingly it will open in Boston, in September.

Stage versions of UK TV shows have also been popularised including Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, Bad Girls, ‘Allo ‘Allo -and a version of our very own Prisoner.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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