Amanda Holden to play Princess Fiona in Shrek

Amanda Holden, the TV and stage actress and judge on ITV’s variety show Britain’s Got Talent, has secured a lead role in the forthcoming DreamWorks production of Shrek The Musical®, based on the Oscar-winning film.

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Playing Princess Fiona, the down-to-earth and independent heroine of the show, Shrek The Musical opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London on 7 June 2011.

Holden has a theatrical background, having trained at Mountview Theatre School and appeared in stage roles including Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Mille at the Shaftsbury Theatre and Liesl Von Trapp in a touring production of The Sound of Music. Her numerous TV credits include Suspicious Circumstances opposite Edward Woodward, Eastenders, Mel in Kiss Me Kate, The Grimleys, Wild At Heart, Cutting It  and Big Top.

Shrek The Musical originally opened on Broadway in December 2008 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. It closed in January this year after a relatively short run, although is now on a major tour of the USA. A number of changes have been made to the touring – and forthcoming London version – of the show, including a new opening, new songs, improved magic and illusions, a newly styled dragon and more emphasis on giving the show “heart”.

This has been confirmed by reviews of the US touring show, which opened this month at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago starring Eric Petersen. The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones said that the show had, “finally discovered a human scale. Or, to put it another way, “Shrek the Musical” has belatedly found more of a heart”.

Richard Blackwood to play Donkey

Other casting confirmed forthe London production includes Richard Blackwood, who will play the Donkey. Blackwood is a comedian, singer and TV and radio presenter and is also step-brother to model Naomi Campbell.

The London stage musical is based on the irreverent fairy tale from William Steig’s book Shrek and the Oscar-winning Dreamworks Animation film. The creative team includes directors Jason Moore (Avenue Q) and Rob Ashford (Promises, Promises), with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Olivier Award winner Jeanine Tesori, scenic, costume and puppet design by Tim Hatley, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Peter Hylenski and choreography by Josh Prince.

The show is the first stage venture for DreamWorks Animation’s theatrical arm and was originally initiated as a project by award-winning director Sam Mendes. The musical will be produced in London by DreamWorks Theatricals’ Bill Damaschke and Mendes’ Neal Street Productions under Caro Newling.

Neal Street Productions is also behind a number of high-profile new London theatre projects including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Current shows include the Mendes’-directed As You Like It and The Tempest at the Old Vic Theatre.

Official casting information will be released soon. Drury Lane is currently home to Oliver!, which will close at the theatre on 8 January 2011.

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Created in-house by parent company Silver Sea Media, the new design follows the site’s consistent growth since its launch in 2007, to become one of the premiere websites covering London’s West End.

The redesign opens out the website to reflect the increasing demand for news and information on London theatre, with greater emphasis on showbiz stories and profiles, entertainment and industry news and comment, and the tracking of events and activity in and around London’s Theatreland. The design, which includes a new colour palette, also places greater emphasis on Westendtheatre.com’s comprehensive ticketing and booking functionality, in partnership with Encore Tickets.

New features on the site include a Twitter Watch strand to follow West End celebrities and stars on the popular social networking platform, improved coverage of actors and actresses appearing in London and increased use of tools to help theatregoers plan a trip to the capital – including Theatreland maps, and guides to matinees and Sunday performances.

Paul Raven, director of WestEndTheatre.com, said: “We are delighted to be able to unveil a new-look westendtheatre.com. From today, new digital features will combine with our news, reviews and ticketing to offer an unparalleled level of coverage and interactivity.  We intend to continue to add new features to ensure that the innovation that has been central to WestEndTheatre.com continues into the future.”

There was lots of support in the audience for Brian Fortuna and Ali Bastian, who wowed BBC audiences on Strictly Come Dancing last year and take guest spots in the show. Ricky Whittle, Mark Ramprakash, Kara Tointon, Craig Revel Horwood and Arlene Phillips were out in force to see the show and support their dancing pals.

The show’s dynamic mix of Latin and ballroom dancing brings some fiery, passionate power to the Shaftesbury Theatre. Burn The Floor was first conceived as a special performance at Sir Elton John’s 50th birthday celebrations in 1997, and made its UK premiere two years later before setting off on a world tour.

And now it’s back in London, featuring the talents of 20 award-winning dancers from around the globe including 18 year old Robbie Kmetoni from Sydney, who was the winner of the Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance, and Cuban salsa dancer Janette Manrara.

Some of the passionate dances featured in the show include the elegance of the Viennese Waltz, the exuberance of the Jive, the intensity of the Paso Doble as well as the Tango, Samba, Mambo, Quickstep and Swing.

Burn The Floor plays at the Shaftesbury Theatre until 4 September, to be followed by another great dance show, Flashdance.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £21 on tickets to Burn The Floor at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London

Sheridan Smith

Confirming the date via her Twitter page, Smith will leave the show on 23 October 2010. Producers of the show are auditioning a number of actresses for the lead part of Elle Woods in the stage adaptation of the hit movie Legally Blonde.

Sheridan Smith is best known for her TV roles including Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Grown Ups, Love Soup, Benidorm, The Royle Family and Gavin and Stacey.

She has recently been filming a one-act Chekhov play for Sky Arts alongside Gavin and Stacey cast mate Matthew Horne. The play, The Proposal, is part of a short series celebrating the 150th anniversary of the playrwight, to be broadcast this November.

Sheridan also performed recently in a workshop version of a new musical based on Helen Fielding’s book Bridget Jones’s Diary, with music by Lily Allen. Stephen Daldry, director of the film and stage version of  Billy Elliot, will helm the project if it goes ahead. The show would also reunite Daldry with producers of the Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot films and stage shows Working Title Films, plus choreographer Peter Darling.

Book tickets to Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London

Lauren Samuels as Sandy in Grease

Good luck to Lauren Samuels tonight, who starts her run as Sandy in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre in London.

Lauren came third in Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s recent BBC One talent search Over The Rainbow to find a Dorothy for his new production of The Wizard of Oz – starting next year at the London Palladium.

She makes her West End debut in Grease tonight, 26 July, alongside Noel Sullivan as Danny and Siubhan Harrison as Rizzo.

A number of Lauren’s fellow Over The Rainbow Dorothys are expected to attend the show.

Grease is now in its third year in the West End and has been seen by over 1 million people. The show is now booking to September 2011.

Lauren takes over from Siobhan Dillon, who was also discovered through an Andrew Lloyd Webber TV talent searched – How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Other cast in the show include Matthew Goodgame, Lucas Rush, Hayley Gallivan, Benjamin Ibbott, Faye Brookes, Bennett Andrews, Robyn Mellor, Michael Vinsen, Susannah Allman, Kerry Winter, Stephanie Powell and Jason Capewell.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £21 on tickets to Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre in London

Emma Williams and Michael Xavier in Love Story in Chichester

The new musical by Howard Goodall and Stephen Clark, had its premiere earlier this year at the Chichester Festival Theatre and was well received by critics, with The Stage calling it a “gorgeous new chamber musical”. As befits a chamber piece, it will transfer to the modestly-sized Duchess Theatre from 27 November. The producers of the show include West End star Michael Ball, Adam Spiegel and Stephen Waley-Cohen.

The show is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, with a book by Stephen Clark, design by Peter McKintosh and musical direction by Stephen Ridley.

Casting will be announced shortly. In Chichester the show starred Michael Xavier and Emma Williams.

In the musical, rich jock Oliver Barrett meets poor arty Jenny Cavilleri and against the odds they fall in love.

CREDITS:

Emmy, Brit and BAFTA award-winning Howard Goodall is one of the UK’s most versatile and distinguished composers having written choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores. Goodall was appointed as England’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, he is the Classical Brit Composer of the Year and Classic FM’s Composer-in-Residence and a highly respected broadcaster and an energetic campaigner for music education.  His extensive scores include Q.I., The Vicar of Dibley, The Gathering Storm, The Borrowers, The Catherine Tate Show, Mr Bean, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, Mr Bean’s Holiday and Blackadder.  Previously his musical theatre compositions include The Hired Man, Girlfriends, Days of Hope, Catwalk, The Kissing Dance and The Dreaming.

Stephen Clark’s work includes Mahabharata for Sadler’s Wells, The Far Pavilions at the Shaftesbury Theatre, the Laurence Olivier award-winning Martin Guerre at the Prince Edward Theatre, La Traviata for English National Opera and Zorro at the Garrick Theatre and Folies Bergère, Paris.

Love Story is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre where her many credits include Hapgood, Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure and Uncle Vanya as well as David Hare’s Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence Of War.  Her other credits include The Music Man starring Brian Conley and A Small Family Business for Chichester Festival Theatre, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Alice in Wonderland for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hilda for Hampstead Theatre and The Rivals for Bristol Old Vic.

Michael Ball makes his producing debut with Love Story.  His many West End credits include originating the role of Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, produced by Adam Spiegel, and for which he won the Laurence Olivier and Whatsonstage Awards for Best Actor in a Musical.  He can currently be seen on tour in the UK reprising the role of Edna.  His other theatre roles include Marius in Les Misérables, Giorgio in Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, Alex  in Aspects of Love, Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Count Fosco in The Woman in White in the West End and on Broadway.  His made his English National Opera debut as Hajj/Poet in Kismet and in 2005 he made his debut with the New York City Opera as Reginald Bunthrone in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.  As well as his Sunday Brunch for BBC Radio, he will present a new series for ITV, The Michael Ball Show, starting next month.  His 15 solo albums have all achieved gold or platinum status and his discography includes: Michael Ball, Always, One Careful Owner, First Love, The Musicals, The Movies, Music, One Voice and the superb homage to Burt Bacharach, Michael Ball – Back To Bacharach.

Sophie Evans

Over The Rainbow runner-up Sophie Evans is set to make her West End debut next year playing Dorothy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s multi-million pound new production of The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium.

Sophie, 17 and from Tonypandy in Wales, will take over from Over The Rainbow winner Danielle Hope every Tuesday evening and the week of 2 May and the 5 to 17 September, when Ms Hope will be on holiday.

Lord Lloyd-Webber and producer Bill Kenwright made the announcement yesterday at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. Lloyd Webber’s controversial decision comes in an attempt to learn lessons from his previous TV casting experiences. “People do get sick,” he said, referring to Connie Fisher, star of his 2006 production of The Sound of Music, who was also cast from a BBC One TV show. “[She] had very bad flu and sang through it which she shouldn’t have done, so she was off for a couple of weeks. We didn’t want a repetition of that. We have a responsibility to the girls as well as the audiences”.

Already a number of the other Over The Rainbow finalists have secured parts in shows, including Lauren Samuels, who makes her West End debut next week playing Sandy in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre, and Steph Fearon, who is currently appearing in Smokey Joe’s Café at the Landor Theatre.

Loyd Webber and Tim Rice to reunite

In an interview with the Daily Mail this week, Lord Lloyd Webber also revealed that he will be reuniting with Tim Rice after 34 years to pen a number of new songs for The Wizard of Oz. Rice and Lloyd Webber are arguably the world’s most successful living composer-lyricists with shows including Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph. Lloyd Webber told the paper: “The fact is that The Wizard Of Oz has never really worked in the theatre. The film has one or two holes where in the theatre you need a song. For example, there’s nothing for either of the two witches to sing.”

The Wizard of Oz will follow the success of Wicked at the Apollo Victoria in London, which has broken all box-office records and tells the story of the witches from The Wizard of Oz.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group will produce the show, with performances starting from 7 February 2011 at the London Palladium. The creative team behind the 2006 revival of The Sound of Music, including director Jeremy Sams, designer Robert Jones and choreographer Arlene Phillips, will work on the show.

The first stage version of L Frank Baum’s classic book was in 1902 starring Anna Laughlin. The 1939 MGM film starring Judy Garland is the most famous version of the show, and was adapted into a stage musical in 1945 by Frank Gabrielson for the St. Louis Municipal Opera.

Book tickets to The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium

Alison Steadman, star of Blithe Spirit

Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Alex), who played a husband and wife in the drama, will reunite on stage as spouses Charles and Ruth Condomine in the play.

Blithe Spirit will also star Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey) as Madame Arcati, and opens at the Theatre Royal Bath in November before a UK tour. The show will then come to the Apollo Theatre in London from 2 March.

Noel Coward’s comedy will be directed by Thea Sharrock, who is currently enjoying enormous success for her production of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance at the National Theatre. She will return to Rattigan next year for his Centenary by directing Cause Célèbre, which will open at the Old Vic Theatre on 17 March, a few days after Blithe Spirit opens in London.

No stranger to Blithe Spirit, Sharrock directed a 2004 production of the play at the Savoy Theatre starring Penelope Keith. The Noel Coward classic, first produced in 1941, has had numerous UK revivals in the last few years. In the play, the novelist Charles Condomine (Bathurst) and his second wife Ruth (Norris) are haunted when an eccentric medium (Steadman) manages to conjure up the ghost of Charles’s neurotic first wife, Elvira, at a seance.

Robert Bathurst has recently completed a UK tour of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter.

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

Hermione Norris

Robert Bathurst

Alison Steadman

Daniel Radcliffe

Produced by Hammer Films, Daniel Radcliffe will take the lead in the film as the young lawyer who finds himself immersed in a ghostly mystery. The film will go into production later this year for a 2011 release date.

The movie has been adapted from Susan Hill’s blockbuster novel byJane Goldman, wife of TV star Jonathan Ross and writer of recent box-office hit Kick-Ass. The director will be James Watkins, who directed horror film Eden Lake.

Radcliffe said: “I am incredibly excited to be part of The Woman In Black. Jane Goldman’s script is beautifully written – both tender and terrifying in equal measure. It is thrilling to be working with James Watkins. From his brilliant work on Eden Lake and also having met him and heard his vision for the film, I know he will make a fantastic film.”

The Woman in Black has been scaring audiences at the Fortune Theatre in the West End for over 20 years and currently stars Orlando Wells and Michael Mears. It is directed by Robin Herford, whose production of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes has just opened at the Duchess Theatre in London.

With the wrapping of the final Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Daniel Radcliffe is committing to a number of new projects including the starring role in musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway next Spring.

In The Woman in Black, a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps, is ordered to travel to a remote village to arrange a recently deceased client’s papers. As he works alone in the client’s isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Shunned by the local people, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true intent.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £20 on tickets to The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre in London

The new adaptation of E. Nesbit’s much-loved novel has played to good audience and critical acclaim since it opened earlier this month. The show is now booking until 2 January 2011.

A special 1,000 seat auditorium has been created at Waterloo station, with the audience seated either side of the railway tracks. The show uses the old Gentleman’s saloon carriage from the original classic film, and also features a real steam train from the National Railway Museum in York.

The show stars Marshall Lancaster, best known for playing DC Chris Skelton in BBC dramas Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars, and Caroline Harker, WPC Hazel Wallace in A Touch of Frost. Other cast include David Baron, Nicholas Bishop, Louisa Clein, Elizabeth Keates, Steven Kynman, Roger May, Blair Plant, Amanda Prior and Sarah Quintrell.

The Railway Children tells the story of Bobby, Peter and Phyllis, three children whose lives change dramatically when their father is mysteriously taken away.  They move from London to a cottage in rural Yorkshire with their mother where they befriend the local railway porter and embark on a magical journey of discovery, friendship and adventure. But the mystery remains – where is Father, and is he ever coming back?

Directed by Damian Cruden, design by Joanna Scotcher, lighting by Richard G. Jones, with music by Christopher Madin and sound by Craig Vear, Mike Kenny’s adaptation of The Railway Children was first produced by York Theatre Royal at the National Railway Museum, York, in 2008.

Book tickets to The Railway Children at Waterloo Station