Ross Leadbeater News

Russell Grant and Musical Director and former member of Only Men Aloud, Ross Leadbeater invite you to a 'Glamorous Night' in celebration of Ivor Novello - the most successful British musical theatre composer of the first half of the 20th century. Ivor Novello and the Great British Musical plays at St James Studio - London's newest and hottest theatre venue - for one night only tonight, 23rd June at 7:30pm.

Russell Grant and Musical Director and former member of Only Men Aloud, Ross Leadbeater invite you to a 'Glamorous Night' in celebration of Ivor Novello - the most successful British musical theatre composer of the first half of the 20th century.

Russell Grant and Musical Director and former member of Only Men Aloud, Ross Leadbeater invite you to a 'Glamorous Night' in celebration of Ivor Novello - the most successful British musical theatre composer of the first half of the 20th century. Ivor Novello and the Great British Musical plays at St James Studio - London's newest and hottest theatre venue - for one night only on Sunday 23rd June at 7:30pm.

Evergreen Theatrical Productions Ltd in Association with Jermyn Street Theatre presents Ivor Novello's GAY'S THE WORD, a musical comedy, featuring Book and Music by Ivor Novello with Lyrics by Alan Melville. The production is presented by special permission of Samuel French Ltd for the Ivor Novello Trustees. Directed and choreographed by Stewart Nicholls, the show features book adapted by Richard Stirling, musical supervisor Ross Leadbeater, original musical direction by Ben Stock and stars Sophie-Louise Dann, Helena Blackman, Josh Little and Elizabeth Seal. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast onstage in the photos below!

Evergreen Theatrical Productions Ltd in Association with Jermyn Street Theatre presents Ivor Novello's GAY'S THE WORD, a musical comedy, featuring Book and Music by Ivor Novello with Lyrics by Alan Melville. Playing tonight, 7 February - 2 March 2013 at the Jermyn Street Theatre, Gay's The Word has a press night slated for Friday 8 February 7.30pm.

Evergreen Theatrical Productions Ltd in Association with Jermyn Street Theatre presents Ivor Novello's GAY'S THE WORD, a musical comedy, featuring Book and Music by Ivor Novello with Lyrics by Alan Melville. Playing 7 February - 2 March 2013 at the Jermyn Street Theatre, Gay's The Word has a press night slated for Friday 8 February 7.30pm.

The Union Theatre presents CALL ME MADAM! Starring Lucy Williamson as Sally Adams. Press Night is Friday October 5th at 7:30pm. The show runs from Wednesday October 3rd to Saturday October 27th, 2012. Tuesday to Saturday performances are at 7:30pm and Sunday performances are at 2pm & 6pm. There is an extra Matinee on Saturday 27th October at 3pm.

The Union Theatre presents CALL ME MADAM! Starring Lucy Williamson as Sally Adams. Press Night is Friday October 5th at 7:30pm. The show runs from Wednesday October 3rd to Saturday October 27th, 2012. Tuesday to Saturday performances are at 7:30pm and Sunday performances are at 2pm & 6pm. There is an extra Matinee on Saturday 27th October at 3pm.

The New Actors Company in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre presents THE GRAND DUKE. The Finborough Theatre's 'Celebrating British Music Theatre' series continues with the first fully staged professional UK production of Gilbert and Sullivan's final operetta, The Grand Duke, since the original 1896 production. It opens at the Finborough Theatre for a strictly limited run of six Sundays and Mondays from Sunday, 1 April 2012.

Part of the Finborough Theatre's Celebrating British Music Theatre series Blue Shale Theatre in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre by arrangement with Samuel French Limited presents PERCHANCE TO DREAM 'A Musical Romance' Devised, Written and Composed by Ivor Novello. Directed by Max Pappenheim. Musical Direction by Ross Leadbeater. Designed by Gregor Donnelly. Sound by Edward Lewis. Cast: Taube Brahms. Michael Burgen. Clare Louise Connolly. Laura Hanna. Amanda Hootman. Annabel Leventon. James Marchant. Rachael McCormick. Martin Milnes. Kelly Price. Claire Redcliffe. Robert Rees. James Russell. Gemma Sandzer. Katy Treharne. Details of the cast for PERCHANCE TO DREAM are below. Please also note the correct date for the press night of LULLABIES OF BROADMOOR which also plays during September. The press night is Venus At Broadmoor and The Demon Box - FRIDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2011 AT 3.00PM The Murder Club and Wilderness - FRIDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2011 AT 7.30PM and not Friday 1st September as previously stated. The Finborough Theatre's acclaimed 'Celebrating British Music Theatre' series continues with Ivor Novello's most romantic musical, Perchance to Dream, opening at the Finborough Theatre for a limited run of eight Sunday and Monday performances on Sunday, 4 September 2011 (Press Night: Monday, 5 September 2011 at 7.30pm). This rediscovery is the first professional London production in more than 25 years, and also commemorates the 60th anniversary of the death of composer Ivor Novello. Spanning the Regency, Victorian and post-war eras, and featuring a score filled with some of Novello's most ravishing songs including Love is My Reason, When I Curtsied to the King, A Woman's Heart and the classic We'll Gather Lilacs, Perchance to Dream is a classic Novello musical - an escapist 'musical romance' whose original 1945 run in the West End played for 1,022 performances. In 1818, Sir Graham Rodney, an impoverished womaniser, is the owner of Huntersmoon, a magnificent old country house, but seeks relief from his life of leisure by masquerading as the dread highwayman "Frenchy". Just at the moment when he finally finds love, the law runs him to ground with tragic results. A generation later, his estate has passed to the wrong side of the family and tragedy strikes a second time. More than a century must go by before the ghosts of Huntersmoon can finally be laid to rest... Welsh-born composer, author and actor Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was one of the most eminent British entertainers of the 20th century. As a composer, he trained in Cardiff, Gloucester (alongside eminent British composers - Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells) and at Magdalen College School, Oxford. His musicals include Glamorous Night, Careless Rapture, Crest of the Wave, The Dancing Years, Gay's the Word and King's Rhapsody; his more than 250 songs include Keep the Home Fires Burning, I Can Give You the Starlight, Waltz of My Heart, And Her Mother Came Too, The Land of Might-Have-Been, Why Isn't It You and Primrose. His plays include Symphony in Two Flats, I Lived With You and The Truth Game. As an actor, he was one of Britain's first major film stars, appearing in over twenty films including The Call of the Blood and playing the title role in the original silent version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger; while his long stage career included many of his own plays and musicals. Novello's musical legacy is commemorated in the Ivor Novello Awards, established in 1955 to honour excellence in British music writing. This production commemorates the 60th anniversary of his death. Director Max Pappenheim recently assisted on Beating Heart Cadaver and The Goodnight Bird at the Finborough Theatre. Directing includes The Charmed Life (King's Head Theatre), An Evening With Opera (Southwark Cathedral), Arcadia and Sweeney Todd (Rugby School), and, as Musical Director for Open Door Opera, The Enchanted Child (Edinburgh Festival and St John's, Smith Square). The cast includes Taube Brahms Kindertransport, The Way Of The World, Redemption Over Hammersmith Broadway, A Woman Of No Importance (LAMDA); Michael Burgen All Male Iolanthe (Union Theatre and Wilton's Music Hall), Alice in Wonderland (Erasmus International Theatre), Zaide (Sadler's Wells), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New Vic Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Union Theatre); Clare Louise Connolly Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Next Door's Baby (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Six Characters In Search Of An Author (Headlong), The Crimson Petal And The White; Laura Hanna A Short History of the Royal Court (Royal Court Theatre), Into the Woods, Hedda Gabler, Romeo and Juliet (LAMDA); Amanda Hootman Epsom Downs, Her Naked Skin (Guildford School of Acting); Annabel Leventon The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company), Pillars Of The Community (National Theatre), Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (Old Vic and Apollo Theatre), New Tricks; James Marchant The Same...But Different (Pleasance Islington), The Straits (Paines Plough), Waking The Dead (BBC); Rachael McCormick Oliver! (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Martin Milnes Utopia Limited (Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Festival, Buxton), The Yeoman Of The Guard (Tower of London), Promises And Lies (Birmingham Rep), The Andrew Marr Show (BBC); Kelly Price Zack (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Misanthrope (Ambassadors Theatre), A Little Night Music (Menier Chocolate Factory and Garrick Theatre), Chicago (Cambridge Theatre), Guys and Dolls (Donmar Warehouse and Piccadilly Theatre), Desperately Seeking Susan (Novello Theatre), Waterloo Road, Doctors; Claire Redcliffe When We Are Married (Garrick Theatre), Great Expectations, Tom's Midnight Garden (Library Theatre, Manchester), Question Time (Arcola Theatre), EastEnders (BBC); Robert Rees Peter Pan (New Wimbledon Theatre), All the Fun of the Fair (Garrick Theatre), State Fair (Finborough Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), Shakespeare Sonnet Walk (Shakespeare's Globe); James Russell Namaskar, Quality Street, Miss Lily Gets Boned (Finborough Theatre), Lewis (ITV); Gemma Sandzer Les Miserables (Palace Theatre), HMS Pinafore (King's Head Theatre), Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone; Katy Treharne The Phantom Of The Opera (Her Majesty's Theatre). The Celebrating British Music Theatre series at the Finborough Theatre In 2006, the Finborough Theatre began the Celebrating British Music Theatre series with a sell-out production of Leslie Stuart's Florodora. Productions since then have included sell-our rediscoveries of Lionel Monckton's Our Miss Gibbs, Harold Fraser-Simson's operetta The Maid of the Mountains, A 'Gilbert and Sullivan' Double Bill featuring Gilbert's play Sweethearts and Sullivan's opera The Zoo, Dame Ethel Smyth's opera The Boatswain's Mate, Sandy Wilson's The Buccaneer, Oscar Asche's Chu Chin Chow, and Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd.

Legendary Ellen Greene - who starred as Audrey in ‘Little Shop of Horrors' on Broadway, in the West End and in the subsequent Hollywood film alongside Rick Moranis and Steve Martin - is joining the cast of Betwixt!, a new British comedy musical written and directed by Ian McFarlane, which is getting a West End season at Trafalgar Studios 2 from Tuesday 26th July to Saturday 20th August.

Robert Gould reviews Ian Judge's London premiere of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's 1965 Broadway musical.

Legendary Ellen Greene - who starred as Audrey in ‘Little Shop of Horrors' on Broadway, in the West End and in the subsequent Hollywood film alongside Rick Moranis and Steve Martin - is joining the cast of Betwixt!, a new British comedy musical written and directed by Ian McFarlane, which is getting a West End season at Trafalgar Studios 2 from Tuesday 26th July to Saturday 20th August.

Steven Webb, Ashleigh Gray and newcomer Benedict Salter are to head the cast of Betwixt!, a new British comedy musical written and directed by Ian McFarlane, which is getting a West End season at Trafalgar Studios 2 from Tuesday 26th July to Saturday 20th August.