Lyricist Anthony Drewe to Guest Narrate A SPOONFUL OF SHERMAN at St. James Studio Theatre, 15-22 April

Award-winning British Lyricist Anthony Drewe is be a guest narrator at two special performances of the critically acclaimed cabaret, A Spoonful of Sherman, which returns to the St James Studio for a week-long run of nine shows from Tuesday 15 - Tuesday 22 April.

He will take charge of proceedings on Tuesday 15 April and Friday 18 April, due to regular host Robert J?Sherman's unavailability.

Drewe is half of one of the UK's most successful musical theatre composing partnerships. He has been writing musicals with George Stiles for more than 31 years. Their many works include include Honk!, which has been produced over 8,000 times and won the 2000 Olivier Award for Best Musical, Betty Blue Eyes, Just So, Soho Cinders and The Wind in the Willows, co-written with Julian Fellows, which is due in the West End in 2015. They also wrote additional songs which were added to the Sherman Brothers award-winning score for the recent West?End and Broadway stage versions of Mary Poppins.

A Spoonful of Sherman tells how the Sherman family dynasty has been successfully writing songs for three generations.

Robert and Richard Sherman were the most successful songwriting partnership in the history of Hollywood, composing more movie musical songs and acclaimed film scores than any other writing team. From the Oscar-winning Chim Chim Cher-ee to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Feed the Birds in Mary Poppins to the unforgettable Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which earned them their third of nine Oscar nominations, their songs have entertained the world for more than 60 years.

A Spoonful of Sherman again features top West End singers Greg Castiglioni (Titanic, Southwark Playhouse), Stuart Matthew Price (Parade, Donmar Warehouse), Charlotte Wakefield (The Sound of Music, Regent's Park) and Emma Williams (the original West End Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and Robert's son Robbie - himself a writer of musicals (Bumblescratch) - will also be performing and narrating.* Songs featured will span 90 incredible years of Sherman family history by including music from the Sherman Brothers' father, Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman.

The recent Tom Hanks/Emma Thompson film Saving Mr Banks, about Walt Disney's epic battle to turn the much-loved book Mary Poppins into a film, sparked renewed interest in the story of the Sherman Brothers and their long association with the Disney studio, for whom they composed Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats. They also wrote what is perhaps their best-known song, It's A Small World (After All) for the 1964 New York World's Fair and it has featured as a boat ride around the nations of the world at Disney theme parks ever since. In 2003, four Sherman Brothers' musicals ranked in the Top 10 Favourite Children's Films of All Time in a British nationwide poll reported by the BBC. The film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was adapted into a West End musical in 2002 and running three-and-a-half-years, became the longest running show ever at the London Palladium. It was nominated for the Best Musical Olivier Award. A stage adaptation of Mary Poppins followed in 2005 in London and on Broadway, where it was nominated for seven Tonys.

2014 saw the posthumous publication of Robert B. Sherman's autobiographical book, Moose: Chapters From My Life.