Graham Bickley, Rob Houchen, and Kelly Mathieson Join Ramin Karimloo in TO MAURY, WITH LOVE

Graham Bickley made his West End debut in 1981 in They're Playing Our Song. His other West End credits include The Pirates of Penzance, Metropolis, Which Witch, Maddie, The Pajama Game (Best Actor nomination, Toronto), Les Misérables (as Enjolras and Marius), Miss Saigon (as Chris), and Sunset Boulevard (as Joe Gillis, playing opposite Petula Clark). He played Tateh in the 2003 London premiere of Ragtime (nominated for the Laurence Olivier and The Whatsonstage Award for Best Actor in a Musical). In 2023, he toured the UK as Captain EJ Smith in Maury Yeston's Titanic the Musical.

Rob Houchen played Jack in the West End premiere of Titanique. He made his West End debut in Les Misérables (as Marius Pontmercy) and later played Marius in the staged concert version of Les Misérables at the Gielgud Theatre. He was Lieutenant Joseph Cable in the Chichester  Festival Theatre production of South Pacific (Manchester Opera House, Sadler's Wells and UK tour). He was Frederick Fleet in the Maury Yeston's Titanic the Musical at Charing Cross Theatre.

Kelly Mathieson made her name in the musical theatre industry when she landed the lead role of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera in the West End. During her nearly three-year, award- winning run as Christine, Kelly also built a flourishing concert career, performing as a soloist at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Concert Hall Glasgow, and Cadogan Hall, where she played Tonia in the UK premiere of Dr Zhivago.

West End and Broadway star Ramin Karimloo is no stranger to Yeston's work,  Karimloo played Barrett in the recent Encores production of Titanic the Musical at NYCityCenter and Guido Contini in Nine in Concert for Hope Mill Theatre at The Lowry.

Final casting is still to be announced.

The concert will feature a 30-piece London Musical Theatre Orchestra and a choir of graduating Musical Theatre MA students from the Royal Academy of Music, under the baton of Mark Aspinall.

Tarento said “My working relationship and friendship with Maury is one of the great joys of my life. His musicals resonate so deeply with me and have framed so much of the past 15 years of my career. To be able to celebrate his 80th birthday in such a significant way is a privilege and an honour.”

The concert is raising funds for Bowel Cancer UK with all profits going towards supporting the work of this vitally important charity.


Maury Yeston is one of Broadway's most celebrated composer lyricists. In addition to winning a Tony Award for Best Score for Titanic the Musical (which won another four Tonys including Best Musical), Yeston won a Tony Award and two Drama Desk Awards for his music and lyrics to Nine (based on Fellini's 1963 movie 8½). That production also won four additional Tonys including Best Musical. The Broadway revival of Nine, starring Antonio Banderas, won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. Yeston's contribution to the score for Grand Hotel was nominated for a Tony and two Drama Desk Awards, and The Donmar Warehouse production won an Olivier Award. His score for Phantom has received national and international acclaim. More recently, he wrote music and lyrics to Death Takes A Holiday, which was nominated for 11 Drama Desk Awards, the first entirely American full length ballet, Tom Sawyer: A Ballet In Three Acts, which premiered in Kansas City and Anything Can Happen in The Theater – The Musical World of Maury Yeston, a new musical revue conceived and directed by Gerard Alessandrini which premièred in March 2020 at Manhattan's York Theater Company.
  
In 2009, Nine google adapted into a film with a screenplay by Anthony Minghella and Michael Tolkin, directed by Rob Marshall and featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Dame Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Fergie, and Sophia Loren. It was nominated for five Golden Globes and four Academy Awards. Yeston was nominated for a Critics Choice and Golden Globe for Best Original Song, Cinema Italiano, and an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “Take It All”.  
                                                      
Other works include: Cello Concerto, premièred by Yo Yo Ma; the concert album Goya - A Life In Song, featuring Placido Domingo and Gloria Estefan; December Songs, a song cycle commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial celebration;  An American Cantata - 2000 Voices, a choral symphony in three movements for the National Symphony Orchestra and 2000 singers commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.