‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Resumes UK Tour in March 2013

The UK national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which launched earlier this year, will be back for a new leg next year.

Cast members Tim Minchin, Chris Moyles and Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm (Melanie C) will all reprise their roles in the musical. Additionally, Ben Forster also will return to the role of Jesus – he appeared this year after winning the ITV reality casting series “Superstar.”

New dates for the tour will kick off March 10, 2013 in Nottingham, and will then travel to London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham. The final show will be held on March 28.

“Last year’s tour was the first-ever U.K. Arena tour of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and it surpassed our expectations,” Lloyd Webber said in a statement. “The response from the audience across the U.K. and Ireland was overwhelming and the show was everything I had hoped for. It’s great news that the fans will have a final chance to see the show with the original arena tour cast.”

This year’s incarnation of the tour began at London’s O2 Arena on September 21 and remained on the road for exactly one month.

In the production, Chisholm performs the role of Mary Magdalene, while Minchin portrays Judas and Moyles is King Herrod.

Lloyd Webber first wrote “Jesus Christ Superstar” as a rock opera double album with Tim Rice in 1969 when the two were relative unknowns. Rice wrote in his autobiography about why he wanted to explore the story.

“From a very young age I had wondered what I might have done in the situations in which Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot found themselves,” he wrote. “How were they to know Jesus would be accorded divine status by millions and that they would as a result be condemned down the ages?”