Cast: Rowe Spends Christmas in Kingston, WWRY & Dancing

Clive Rowe, Paul Thornley and Matt Rawle, will star in The Three Musketeers at The Rose, Kingston this Christmas, a new musical with a score by George Stiles. The adaptation of the classic novel will open at The Rose on 27 November with Michael Pickering in the role of D’Artagnan.

Christmas in Kingston will be a departure for Clive Rowe who is well known for his appearances as the dame for Hackney Empire – which is currently closed (See News:E8831253795461}, 24 Sep 2009). His appearance as Widow Twankey in {Aladdin last Christmas was his sixth for the theatre. Rowe was recently seen in the West End revival of The Fantasticks. Having debuted the title role of Zorro in 2009 production Matt Rawle has also appeared in the West End as Che in Evita.

Adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale about the adventures of D’Artagnan and his quest to join the legendary Musketeers, this new stage version promises to be “sultry, passionate and full of the heat of Parisian summers.”

Composer George Stiles is an award-winning songwriter whose credits (with his regular collaborator Anthony Drewe) include Mary Poppins and Honk. Producer Bud Martin has recently co-produced Legally Blonde in the West End and Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 on Broadway. Lyrics are by Paul Leigh, with a book by Peter Raby with Francis Matthews. Former Greenwich Theatre artistic director Francis Matthews directs.

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The BBC’s So You Think You Can Dance winner Charlie Bruce will be joining the cast of Dirty Dancing as an ensemble member and the understudy for Baby, alongside Dancing On Ice star Ray Quinn as Billy Kostecki (See News, 28 May 2010) from 26 July 2010 at the Aldwych Theatre. The new cast will also feature Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer Johnny Wright in the lead role of Johnny Castle.

Dirty Dancing, currently in its fourth year, has been adapted for the stage by the film’s screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein, who based the story’s setting on her own childhood experiences of family holidays in America’s Catskill Mountains. The musical had its world premiere in Sydney in 2004 and has since proved a hit on tour in Australia and Germany as well as the UK.

Also joining the cast are Paul Gilmore (Jake Houseman), Hilary MacLean (Marjorie Houseman), James Leece (Robbie Gould), Maxine Gregory (Vivian Pressman), Christopher Kenniston (Neil Kellerman) and Richard Hope (Max Kellerman).

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Welsh actor and popstar Noel Sullivan is to join the touring cast of We Will Rock You leaving the role of Danny Zuko in Grease he has held since November 2009.

Sullivan came to prominence as a member of the band Hear’Say, the pop group resulting from ITV’s 2001 Popstars reality TV show. Since the band’s split he has gone on to appear in Fame, Flashdance and Love Shack, taking up the lead role in Grease late last year.

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.