Following the outstanding success of their previous production, "Take 6", a compilation of movie greats, Act 1 staged its summer production for a week long run from Monday, July 7th until Saturday, July 12th 2003.

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is a spectacular musical with a wide range of music. From the raw emotion of chorus numbers such as Down on our luck to the spiralling and beautiful Kyrie set in the cathedral of Notre Dame, it provides humour, sadness and the story of unrequited love of Quasimodo. Written by John Trent-Wallace, with lyrics by Gary Sullivan, the show premiered at the Mermaid Theatre London with the Essex Group, Gary's own Theatre Company, before being made available to other groups in association with Samuel French of London.

"Hunchback" needs little explanation, for the story of Quasimodo the bellringer is a familiar one. Hugo's story has provided a beautiful backdrop of characters on which Gary Sullivan has woven his story. He has lifted Quasimodo from the book and made him the central character, for his part in the original novel is very limited with the bellringer only actually appearing in two chapters.

This is the show with everything; demanding and getting from audiences reactions to a whole spectrum of emotions; from pathos to comedy, bawdy lyrics to love songs, violent death to loving tenderness. The characters fill the stage, ranging from Jester to Archbishop, poet to cut-throat, street urchins to bourgeoisie, along with hags, whores, thieves and villains, and central to everything, the poignant, pathetic figure of Quasimosdo, the hunchback.

Gary Sullivan and John Trent Wallace have produced a phenomenal piece of work in the writing of this musical which transports its audiences back to the streets of fifteenth century Paris, where the citizens, hags, whores and thieves of the city lived out their lives by whatever means they could, under the brooding gaze of the great cathedral of Notre Dame.