WOS TV: Up Close With … Lend Me a Tenor‘s Matthew Kelly

Lend Me a Tenor, the operatic farce by Peter Sham and Brad Carroll based on Ken Ludwig‘s 1986 West End play, opened on 15 June (previews from 2 June 2011) at the Gielgud Theatre, starring TV presenter and actor Matthew Kelly.

Kelly appears alongside Michael Matus, Joanna Riding, Damian Humbley, Cassidy Janson and Sophie-Louise Dann in the production, which brings Lend Me a Tenor back to the Gielgud – Ludwig’s play premiered at the venue in 1986 when it was called the Globe. The musical is currently booking for a limited season through to 19 November 2011.

Matthew Kelly‘s recent theatre credits include playing Pozzo in Waiting for Godot alongside Ian McKellen and Roger Rees at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and on international tour, Comedians for the Lyric Hammersmith, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Trafalgar Studios and Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare’s Globe.

He also appeared in the Theatre Royal Plymouth try-out run of Lend Me a Tenor, played King Arthur in Monty Python musical Spamalot and was seen in the West End production of Tim Firth’s Sign of the Times at the Duchess Theatre. He won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for Birmingham Rep’s production of Of Mice and Men which transferred to the West End and subsequently re-opened the Old Vic.

Having previously enjoyed try-out success at the Theatre Royal Plymouth – including a Whatsonstage.com Award nomination – Lend Me a Tenor  is packed full of classic farce, mistaken identity, double entendres and innuendo.

Here Whatsonstage.com’s Joseph Pike talks to Kelly, who stars as Lend Me A Tenor‘s neurotic impresario Henry Saunders.