O’Sullivan Dark Angel Flies into Apollo for Xmas

Irish chanteuse and Edinburgh Fringe superstar Camille O’Sullivan will bring her renowned one-woman cabaret show back to London this Christmas for an extended season. The Dark Angel receives its West End premiere at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, where it runs from 9 December 2009 (previews from 7 December) to 16 January 2010.

Billed as “sexy, fierce, amusing and totally mesmerising”, O’Sullivan, backed only by piano and drums, transforms each song she performs in The Dark Angel into a theatrical, storytelling experience, celebrating the bizarre and wonderful. Her repertoire includes work by Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, David Bowie, Tom Waits and many others.

Internationally, The Dark Angel has had sell-out engagements in New York, Sydney and Edinburgh as well as previous London stints at the Roundhouse, Soho Theatre and Queen Elizabeth Hall and extensive UK touring. O’Sullivan also recently performed Carousel: The Songs of Jacque Brel at the Barbican, featured as a long-running guest artist at the Olivier Award-winning La Clique at the London Hippodrome and shared the stage with Jools Holland at the Royal Albert Hall (following TV appearances on Later with Jools).

O’Sullivan was born in London to a French mother and Irish father and grew up in Cork surrounded by the music of the French torch singers – a soundtrack which was her inspiration to become one of Ireland’s most unique artists. She started her career as an architect and painter, but changed direction after a near-fatal car accident in Dublin.

She has appeared in the films Over the Edge, November Afternoon and the Oscar-nominated Mrs Henderson Presents and in theatrical productions of One Night Stand, Tonight Lola Blau and Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. More recently, she was invited to perform on the BBC’s seminal music programme, Later With Jools and was a guest star in the legendary Laurence Olivier Award-winning cabaret show La Clique at the London Hippodrome.

Opening this week at the Apollo, O’Sullivan’s Irish compatriot and fellow Edinburgh festival alumnus, comedian Dylan Moran, opens his new stand-up show What it is for a season from 28 October (previews from 26 October) to 5 December 2009, following fast on the heels of another comedian Ross Noble, with his stand-up offering Things (See News, 13 May 2009).