1st Night Photos: Suzanne Shaw Skates in Chicago

At the Cambridge Theatre last night (2 June 2008), Suzanne Shaw, winner of this year’s ITV competition Dancing on Ice, became the 23rd actress to play murderess Roxie Hart in the West End production of Kander and Ebb musical Chicago, in which she appears for six weeks only until 12 July (See News, 15 Apr 2008).

Shaw joins a list of stars that includes Ruthie Henshall (the original West End Roxie in this revival), Denise Van Outen, Brooke Shields, Jennifer Ellison and Bonnie Langford. After rising to fame through ITV competition Popstars, Shaw went on to have several number one singles with Hear’Say, the band formed by the show’s winners. Her subsequent stage musical credits have included Summer Holiday and, in the West End, The Rocky Horror Show and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

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For Whatsonstage.com Photos, our photographer Dan Wooller was on hand for the Chicago curtain call and post-show party at the Cambridge Theatre, along with Shaw and co-stars including Anna-Jane Casey (as Velma Kelly), Terence Maynard (Billy Flynn), Victor McGuire (Amos Hart) and Sue Kelvin (Mama Morton). Amongst the other guests cheering Shaw on were her Dancing on Ice partner Matt Evers and fellow alumni David Seaman, Gareth Gates and Chris Fountain as well as Olympic triple jumper Jonathan Edwards, Emmerdale’s Adele Silva and Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton du Beke.

This West End production of Chicago opened at the Cambridge Theatre (where the musical’s original London production ran for 603 performances from April 1979) on 28 April 2006, after eight-and-a-half years at the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand. Amongst its accolades are the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production and the Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical.

Kander and Ebb’s 1975 musical is based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins and has a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The current stage revival, which transferred from Broadway, is directed by Walter Bobbie and designed by John Lee Beatty, with choreography by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse.

-by Terri Paddock

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