First published: 15 May 2008

Into The Hoods, the urban dance fairytale, has announced the second extension to its run at the Novello theatre and is now booking to 30 August.

Into The Hoods is produced by ZooNation, a street dance company. A comic take on Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into The Woods, the action takes place in Ruff Endz Estate and includes characters Spinderella, a DJ, Prince Wolf who recently signed Lil Red to his label Big Teeth Records, Giant, a drug-dealing pimp and Fairy Gee, Spinderella’s fairy godmother. The shows contains hip-hop, breakdancing and street dance and features music by artists including Gorillaz, Basement Jaxx, Stevie Wonder and Kanye West.

This extension means the show is now on course to become the longest running dance show in West End history. The record was previously held by Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake which ran for 17 weeks; by the end of August Into The Hoods will have beaten this by seven weeks.

Into The Hoods began as part of the 2005 Breakin’ Convention hip-hop festival at Sadler’s Wells. After developing the idea, ZooNation enjoyed two successful years at the Edinburgh Festival before the show was brought to the West End. Speaking earlier in the year to Official London Theatre about the West End transfer, the show’s choreographer, Kate Prince, said “It’s absolutely the most life-affirming, most incredible thing that we’ve ever had the opportunity to do. Everyone is working so hard right now to try and make sure that we don’t let anyone down.”

CM