Fever Pitch

“Arsenal till I die / I’m Arsenal till I die / I know I am, / I’m sure I am / Arsenal till I die!”

Fever Pitch

Book by Tamsin Collison (from the book by Nick Hornby). Music by Scott Stroman.

Highbury Opera Theatre commissioned the world’s first musical adaptation of Nick Hornby’s legendary football memoir from me and jazz musician and composer Scott Stroman.

Fever Pitch traces the agonies and the ecstasies of lifelong Arsenal superfan ‘Gooner’, alongside his own struggles to grow up and make it as both a writer and a man.

Scott Stroman (HOT’s Artistic Director) and I adapted Hornby’s celebrated travails into a through-sung musical show, featuring a cast of six professional actor/singers and a dozen professional musicians, plus a large community chorus and 40 local school children. The range of musical styles includes classical, jazz, folk-rock, music hall and terrace chants.

World Premiere: Friday 22nd September 2017, 7.30pm at The Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Highbury London N1 2UN.

“This is the opera for people who think that they don’t like opera.”  

Scott Stroman, composer

“Anyone got a rhyme for ‘Arsenal’? Anyone…?” 

Tamsin Collison, librettist.
Highbury Opera Theatre, conducted by Scott Stroman, directed by Bernie C Byrnes.
Union Chapel, London, 24th September 2017.