Royal Mail release Musicals Stamps

The Royal Mail is celebrating seven decades of UK stage musicals with a set of stamps, issued today.

Eight shows are featured: Queen’s We Will Rock You, West End classic Oliver!, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Me and My Girl – first produced in 1937, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, Elton John’s Billy Elliot, and (slightly bizarrely) Return to the Forbidden Planet.

Roger Taylor and Brian May of Queen helped launch the stamps at the Dominion Theatre today, and said: “We’re thrilled that We Will Rock You has been immortalised on a Royal Mail stamp. The image on the stamp takes us back to when we were touring as Queen and embodies the rock and roll music that we wanted to celebrate in We Will Rock You the musical.”

We know they can’t include everything but they have left out some biggies: Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn’t feature, which is odd given that he is probably Britain’s most successful living musicals composer. And the world’s longest running musical, Les Miserables, is strangely absent (yes, it was written by two French men, but the production is most definitely British). And no Leslie Bricusse, Noel Coward, Ivor Novello or Sandy Wilson work?

Click here to see the full set of Musicals stamps

LINKS

Royal Mail website

CASTING: Jodie Prenger to join the cast of Spamalot on tour

“I’d Do Anything” winner and Oliver! star Jodie Prenger will join the cast of the UK tour of Spamalot playing the Lady of Lake, in Monty Python’s hit musical comedy. She leaves her role as Nancy on 27 March to be replaced by Kerry Ellis (Wicked). The tour starts at the New Wimbledon Theatre on the 29 May.