GYPSY Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Monday October 6 to Saturday, November 8

HER unforgettable role as pie-maker Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd earned Imelda Staunton an Olivier and a Theatre UK Award for best performer in a musical.

But possibly the greatest honour came from composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who decided she was perfect to play the lead in another of his classic Broadway musicals – Gypsy.

“Stephen loved Imelda and said she should be playing Mama Rose,” says director Jonathan Kent on a break from rehearsals. “That began the ball rolling – he went into battle with the estate, which was very worried about letting anyone play it.

“The last time Gypsy was performed in London was 35 years ago with Angela Lansbury in the role. Arthur Laurentis who wrote the book felt the role wasn’t a part for a British actress – but I think with Imelda we have found the actress who can do it.”

The 1959 musical Gypsy is based on the autobiography of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and the last days of vaudeville as it moves towards burlesque, it focuses on Lee’s wildly ambitious mother Mama Rose and her drive to make her daughter famous.

“Sweeney Todd was a big show but this is a huge show,” says Kent. “It’s about a troupe of performers trailing across the whole of the US – it has a huge scope to it.

“It has the clichés of vaudeville about the American dream – if you work hard you can make a success. It’s about the emptiness of that promise.”

Like Sweeney Todd, the musical has at its heart a monster – whose hunger for her daughters to succeed might not be quite as alien today in a world obsessed with fame and reality television.

“Mama Rose is a woman that you sort of disapprove of, but wins your grudging respect and a sort of admiration for her resilience, determination and sheer drive,” says Kent.

“There are a lot of parallels from the Kardashian cult of people desperate for fame at any price. It’s not quite fame at any price for Mama Rose – she pursues her daughters’ name in lights. I think maybe it is more recognisable with the celebrity culture that we didn’t have 20 or 30 years ago.”

He believes at the heart of the story is the relationship between a mother and her daughter – as the mother becomes the child.

“It is so well-written – there are so many contradictions to the characters it’s not two-dimensional in any way,” he says.

“Mama Rose is an extremely complicated part to play. Not only does she have to do these huge anthemic songs, but it is also a complicated part to act.”

Supporting Staunton in the cast is Lara Pulver as Louise – the shy daughter living in her brasher sister June’s shadow, who suddenly has to take the spotlight when June dramatically quits the show.

And Lewis star Kevin Whately is leaving the dreaming spires of Oxford behind to play Herbie, the theatrical agent Mama Rose twists around her little finger to become both her daughters’ manager and her on-again off-again lover.

“Kevin sings and dances with amazing gusto,” says Kent. “It’s a company with depth – there isn’t a part in it that isn’t really well played. I can’t think of anyone better than Lara to play Louise, and we have got some really wonderful veteran actresses playing the strippers which is such a bonus.”

The cast also includes four youngsters alternating the roles of Baby June and Baby Louise in the opening five scenes of the musical.

The biggest challenge to Kent has been the staging in Chichester’s distinctive thrust space.

“Gypsy is a hymn to the proscenium arch,” he says. “With Chichester we have had to find a whole new way around that. In some ways it has liberated the story, so it is out among the audience.”

Helping him is the same production team from Sweeney Todd, which also won five Whatsonstage Awards, and two further Oliviers for its West End run.

Designer Anthony Ward and lighting designer Mark Henderson also worked with Kent on the Noel Coward play Private Lives which transferred to the West End last year.

“It’s the team I quite often work with – I admire them as creative artists,” says Kent, adding this will also be his third time working with Staunton, having directed her in Good People last year at the Hampstead theatre.

“Hopefully this will be third time lucky! I would like Gypsy to have a further life outside Chichester so that more people can see it. I hope there will be a hunger for it – there seems to be in Chichester at the moment.”