Stellar quartet perform original Christmas song at Whatsonstage.com Awards launch

Iwan Lewis, Niamh Perry, Stuart Matthew Price and Zizi Strallen

Inspired by the introduction of our new Whatsonstage.com Awards category for Best Original Music, sponsored by Autograph, we were keen to give a platform for an up-and-coming British composer at next week’s Launch Party for the 2013 Awards. We’re pleased to announce that that composer is Richard Beadle, currently musical director of the world premiere production of The Bodyguard at the Adelphi Theatre.

At the Launch Party next Friday 7 December 2013 at Café de Paris, Beadle will lead a quartet of musical theatre stars – Niamh Perry, Zizi Strallen, Stuart Matthew Price and Iwan Lewis - in a performance of his suitably festive, original song “As the World Sleeps”. It is, says Beadle, a song about the message of Christmas that’s “definitely not Jingle Bells”.

Over the past ten years, Richard Beadle has been musical director for many successful shows including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Blood Brothers, Grease and Fame, as well recent Whatsonstage.com Award winners and nominees Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hair and Betty Blue Eyes. He is currently writing the music and lyrics for his own brand-new original musical, Today Is My Day, which has a book by Neil Docking and Maxine Evans and is due to premiere in 2013.

Price is currently appearing in the European premiere of Marvin Hamlisch’s Sweet Smell of Success at the Arcola Theatre. His other performance credits include Parade, Shrek, Merrily We Roll Along, Departure Lounge and Bugsy Malone. The other male in the quartet, Iwan Lewis, has appeared in Godspell, Passion and Legally Blonde and will soon be seen in the much-anticipated Les Miserables film.

Niamh Perry is currently appearing in the tenth anniversary revival of Boy George’s Taboo at the Brixton Club House. She launched her career as one of the “Nancy” finalists in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s reality TV casting competition I’d Do Anything, which she followed up with credits including Mamma Mia! and the premiere of Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies in the West End.

One of the immensely talented Strallen sisters, Zizi Strallen has just opened this week in the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Her many other credits include Rock of Ages, Cinderella, Dirty Dancing, Scrooge and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - as well as, along with Iwan Lewis, the Whatsonstage.com Awards Concert at the Prince of Wales Theatre!

Nominations for Best Original Music and all 27 Awards categories will be revealed at the event the line-up for which, as previously announced, also includes guest presenters Alistair McGowan, Mark Gatiss, Tamzin Outhwaite, Stephen Tompkinson and Belinda Lang and a finale performance from the US cast of Tony Award-winning Green Day musical American Idiot.

Among those who've already RSVP'd to attend the Launch Party are: Aaron Sidwell, Adam James, Aden Gillett, Adrian Lester, Adrian Lukis, Adrian Noble, Danielle Hope, Darren Day, Deborah Shaw, Dominic Rowan, Gay Soper, Geronimo Rauch, Gina Beck, Hannah John Karmen, Hannah Waddingham, Harry Hadden-Paton, Hattie Morahan, Helen Lederer, Jamie Ballard, Jolyon Coy, Laurence Boswell, Lewis Reeves, Linda Marlowe, Lucy Bailey, Mark Curry, Mark Hadfield, Martin Ball, Matt Rawle, Nica Burns, Paul Baker, Pip Carter, Rachel Tucker, Rosemary Ashe, Sally Dexter, Sandra Dickinson, Sierra Boggess, Simon Williams, Tanya Moodie and Tracie Bennett.

Voting for the winners commences immediately after the Launch Party.

Final results are announced during the star-studded Awards Concert, which takes place on Sunday 17 February 2013 at the Palace Theatre, hosted by Mel Giedroyc and Rufus Hound.

The evening includes a two-and-a-half hour Concert performed by numerous nominees and other top West End stars as well as numbers from some of the year's biggest musicals - and of course, your big-name winners collecting their trophies to your cheers.

Both events are held in aid of this year’s adopted charity, Interact (part of Stagecoach Charitable Trust), which provides disabled and disadvantaged children and young people with real opportunities to develop valuable skills for life through drama, movement and music workshops. Anyone wanting to support InterAct by making a donation please visit: http://wos.im/TqCtSx

If you'd like to be at this year's Launch Party and get VIP access to the Concert, you can still sign up to be one of our limited number of Theatregoer Supporters. For more information, click the link below. For information on corporate sponsorship opportunities, call Terri Paddock on 020 7317 9103 or email sponsors@whatsonstage.com.

THANKS TO ALL OUR SPONSORS:

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