Theatre News

Cast: Mazelle in Joe’s, Edwards Is Queen, Woods

| London's West End |

15 June 2010

Former X Factor finalist Brenda Edwards will join the West End cast of Queen musical We Will Rock You for a limited ten-week season from next Monday 21 June 2010 at the Dominion Theatre.

Edwards fills in as Killer Queen, a role she’s already played in the show’s touring production, for long-serving cast member Mazz Murray, who is taking a maternity break. Since competing on X Factor in 2005, her stage credits have included Chicago, Carmen Jones and Brenda’s Gospel Christmas.

Set in the future, We Will Rock You tells the story of a world in which globalisation has meant the death of real music in favour of computer-produced cyber stars, a status quo which the rebel Bohemians, harking back to the Golden Age of rock (embodied by Queen), are trying to overthrow so that they can write and perform their own music. An unintentional hero ends up saving the kids of Planet Mall from the tyrannical Killer Queen and discovers the place of living rock.

We Will Rock You has a book by Ben Elton and features 32 of Queen’s greatest hits including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Under Pressure”, “Radio Gaga” and, of course, “We Will Rock You”. It’s directed by Elton, choreographed by Arlene Phillips and designed by Mark Fisher and Willie Williams.

The current cast is led by Peter Murphy (as Galileo) and Sabrina Aloueche (Scaramouche), along with Louise Bowden (Meat), Ian Carlyle (Britney), Garry Lake (Pop) and Alex Bourne (Khasoggi).

In other musical casting news:

American disco diva Kym Mazelle, whose 1980s and 90s chart-toppers included “No More Tears”, in the revival of Leiber and Stoller musical revue Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Ahead of a possible transfer, the production runs at the fringe Landor Theatre 20 July (previews from 13 July) to 22 August 2010, although, due to previous commitments, Mazelle will only appear from 13 to 25 July.

And at Regent’s Park’s Open Air Theatre, full casting has been announced for artistic director Timothy Sheader’s production of Into the Woods, which runs from 11 August to 11 September 2010 (previews from 5 August) as part of this year’s Stephen Sondheim 80th birthday celebrations. Helen Dallimore (the original West End Glinda in Wicked) and Michael Xavier (currently in Love Story at Chichester) will play Cinderella and Cinderella’s Prince/The Wolf, along with Simon Thomas, Amy Griffiths, Beverley Rudd and previously announced cast members Hannah Waddingham, Jenna Russell, Marc Antolin, Valda Aviks, Billy Boyle, Gaye Brown, Sophie Caton, Alice Fearn, Mark Goldthorp, Amy Griffiths, Mark Hadfield, Amy Ellen Richardson, Ben Stott and Gemma Wardle.