Cast announced for The Rat Pack - Live From Las Vegas

Final casting has been announced for the West End production of the Olivier Award-nominated The Rat Pack – Live from Las Vegas, which returns to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket (where it had its  first West End run in 2003)  for a strictly limited season from Wednesday 13th  December to Saturday 3rd February.

The cast features Garrett Phillips as Frank Sinatra, Nigel Casey (Dean Martin), David Hayes (Sammy Davis Jr), with Joanna Walters, Amelia Adams, Rebecca Parker and Laura Darton as The Burrelli Sisters.  Nicola Emmanuelle will also join the show from Tuesday 9th January to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the First Lady of Song and Queen of Jazz, Ella Fitzgerald.

Songs featured in this special edition of the production will include Night and Day, The Lady is a Tramp, Mack the Knife and S’Wonderful.

Director and choreographer Sebastian said: We are thrilled to introduce Ella Fitzgerald to the show for 2018 in both the West End and later UK tour dates, to celebrate the centenary of this great singer’s birth.

From 13th December to 6th January, The Rat Pack – Live from Las Vegas, which is  devised, directed and choreographed by Mitch Sebastian,will have a Christmas theme with their unique take on  festive classics including Baby It’s Cold Outside, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, White Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bells and Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow. Matthew Freeman is musical director of the 12-piece Rat Pack Big Band is

Garrett Phillips (Frank Sinatra): is an Irish actor and singer Phillips who is a familiar face on screen and stage, having starred in five series of the popular TV drama Ros Na Rún as Dr Cathal Hennessy. His musical theatre roles have included Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cliff in Cabaret, Melvin Thorpe in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Doody in Grease.

Nigel Casey (Dean Martin) has enjoyed enormous success across Europe since he began his career as Greaseball in Starlight Express. His other starring roles include Billy Flynn in Chicago, Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, Danny in Grease, both Bernardo and Riff in West Side Story, Monty in Saturday Night Fever and the Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicor Dreamcoat.

David Hayes (Sammy Davis Jr) has performed in The Rat Pack – Live from Las Vegas in the West End, touring the UK, in Germany, Denmark and across the US. Sammy Davis Jr actually saw Hayes perform as him in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and said: “That was the best singing impersonation of me that I’ve ever heard!”

Nicola Emmanuelle (Ella Fitzgerald) is London-born and  comes from a South African jazz dynasty: her father, Nathan ‘Dambuza’ Mdledle, was the founder and lead singer of the Manhattan Brothers and a hall of famer; her mother, Louisa Manuel, also in the South African hall of fame, was a singer with the ‘Woodpeckers’. Her understanding of the feel and swing of the best of the past, and her own contemporary iconic style and individuality, adds to and supports a voice of mesmerising purity and beauty.