Ruthie Henshall leads Guys & Dolls concert at Cadogan Hall
A concert performance of Guys and Dolls will be staged at Cadogan Hall later this year starring Ruthie Henshall, Dennis Waterman, Tim Howar, Anna-Jane Casey and Graham Bickley.
Guys and Dolls tells the story of New York gangsters, gamblers and showgirls. As high-rolling gambler Sky Masterson (Howar) attempts to charm Missionary Sister Sarah Brown (Casey) into accompanying him to Cuba, Nathan Detroit (Bickley) tries to avoid the matrimonial clutches of his fiancée Miss Adelaide (Henshall). Dennis Waterman is on board to narrate.
The 1950 Broadway musical, which has music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, ran for 1,200 performances in New York and won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
A 1955 film adaptation of the musical starred Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra, and it has been revived on Broadway and the West End several times. It was last seen on the West End stage in 2005, revived at the Piccadilly Theatre starring Ewan McGregor, Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge and Jenna Russell.
Award-winning actress Ruthie Henshall originated the role of Roxie Hart in the 1997 London revival of Chicago, a role she has also reprised in New York and London.
Amongst her other theatre credits are appearances in Marguerite at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Cats at the New London Theatre, Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre (a role she reprised as part of the 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1995), Crazy for You at the Prince Edward Theatre and Oliver! at the London Palladium. Henshall won an Olivier Award for her 1995 role in She Loves Me at the Savoy Theatre.
Dennis Waterman is currently starring in the BBC’s New Tricks and will also be familiar to viewers of the The Canterbury Tales,Where The Heart Is, The Sweeney, Minder and Moses Jones. On stage he starred as Alfred Doolittle in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Keith Waterhouse‘s Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at the Garrick Theatre.
Anna-Jane Casey’s West End credits include Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Grease, Starlight Express, West Side Story and Chicago. Her other theatre credits include the title role in Sweet Charity for the Sheffield Crucible, Forbidden Broadway at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Comedy of Errors at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park and Bells are Ringing at the Union Theatre, for which she received a Whatsonstage.com Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Graham Bickley was nominated for a Olivier and Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role in Ragtime at the Piccadilly Theatre. His recent theatre credits also include The Secret Garden, The Grand Irrationality and the UK premiere of The Light in the Piazza at the Leicester Curve. Bickley also starred as Joey Boswell in the BBC’s Bread.
Tom Howar’s theatre credits include playing Bailey in the 2008 production of Betwixt!, as well as appearing in Rent, On the Town, Peggy Sue Got Married and Les Miserables on tour in the United States.
– Catherine Noonan
