The Wedding Present musical brings iconic sound back to the Leeds stage

It's a story of love, loss, break ups and breakdowns... everything you'd expect from a Wedding Present song.

- by Jennifer Cartwright

Reception is a new musical inspired by the songs of David Gedge and his bands the Wedding Present and Cinerama. 40 years on from the Wedding Present's debut single Go Out And Get 'Em, Boy, the musical will be performed from August 22 to September 6 at The Warehouse in Holbeck.

Set in the summer of 1985, Reception begins in the same place the Wedding Present was formed - the University of Leeds. The jukebox musical follows a group of students through life milestones and tests their friendships over time - there's a funeral, a hen do, a wedding and, of course, a reception.

Reception is written and directed by Matt Aston, seasoned theatre professional and lifelong Wedding Present fan. He's seen David Gedge perform over 70 times and in fact it was at one of these performances that the idea for a musical began. In 2009, when David Gedge performed with the BBC Big Band, Matt was in the audience.

Here, he saw for the first time the theatrical possibilities that lay within the musician's catalogue. Matt said: “The arrangements of the songs were so different, from an indie guitar band to easy listening, slightly jazz style, slightly Frank Sinatra.

"There were lots of horns, lots of trumpets, lots of strings. And that was my first kind of inkling just kind of went, I'd just started directing at that point. I thought, maybe there's something in there.”