Cast: Rowe Spends Christmas in Kingston, WWRY & Dancing
Clive Rowe, Paul Thornley and Matt Rawle, will star in The Three Musketeers
at The Rose, Kingston this Christmas, a new musical with a score by
George Stiles. The adaptation of the classic novel will open at The
Rose on 27 November with Michael Pickering in the role of D’Artagnan.
Christmas
in Kingston will be a departure for Clive Rowe who is well known for
his appearances as the dame for Hackney Empire – which is currently
closed (See {News:E8831253795461}, 24 Sep 2009). His appearance as
Widow Twankey in Aladdin last Christmas was his sixth for the theatre. Rowe was recently seen in the West End revival of The Fantasticks. Having debuted the title role of Zorro in 2009 production Matt Rawle has also appeared in the West End as Che in Evita.
Adapted
from Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale about the adventures of D’Artagnan
and his quest to join the legendary Musketeers, this new stage version
promises to be “sultry, passionate and full of the heat of Parisian
summers.”
Composer George Stiles is an award-winning
songwriter whose credits (with his regular collaborator Anthony
Drewe) include Mary Poppins and Honk. Producer Bud Martin has recently
co-produced Legally Blonde in the West End and Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 on
Broadway. Lyrics are by Paul Leigh, with a book by Peter Raby with
Francis Matthews. Former Greenwich Theatre artistic director Francis
Matthews directs.
The BBC’s So You Think You Can Dance winner Charlie Bruce will be joining the cast of Dirty Dancing as an ensemble member and the understudy for Baby, alongside Dancing On Ice
star Ray Quinn as Billy Kostecki (See News, 28 May
2010) from 26 July 2010 at the Aldwych Theatre. The new cast will also
feature Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer Johnny Wright in the lead role
of Johnny Castle.
Dirty Dancing,
currently in its fourth year, has been adapted for the stage by the
film’s screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein, who based the story’s setting on
her own childhood experiences of family holidays in America’s Catskill
Mountains. The musical had its world premiere in Sydney in 2004 and has
since proved a hit on tour in Australia and Germany as well as the UK.
Also
joining the cast are Paul Gilmore (Jake Houseman), Hilary MacLean
(Marjorie Houseman), James Leece (Robbie Gould), Maxine Gregory
(Vivian Pressman), Christopher Kenniston (Neil Kellerman) and
Richard Hope (Max Kellerman).
Welsh actor and popstar Noel Sullivan is to join the touring cast of We Will Rock You leaving the role of Danny Zuko in Grease he has held since November 2009.
Sullivan came to prominence as a member of the band Hear’Say, the pop group resulting from ITV’s 2001 Popstars reality TV show. Since the band’s split he has gone on to appear in Fame, Flashdance and Love Shack, taking up the lead role in Grease late last year.
Set in the future, We Will Rock You
tells the story of a world in which globalisation has meant the death
of real music in favour of computer-produced cyber stars, a status quo
which the rebel Bohemians, harking back to the Golden Age of rock
(embodied by Queen), are trying to overthrow so that they can write and
perform their own music.
