Vampires Rock Tour Dates

The new tour of Vampires Rock is at the Queens Theatre in Barnstaple tomorrow night, and then on a  countrywide UK tour which is currently scheduled to end at the Belfast Waterfront on 30th March.

Vampires Rock is a musical comedy set in New York in the year 2030 where the undead are among us. Steve Steinman plays the evil Baron Von Rockula who is the owner of the Live and Let Die Club. Aspiring singer Pandora  arrives to audition for the resident vocalist position and is the perfect choice for the Baron’s bride but he must convince her to agree to eternal immortality and live forever!

With the help of some classic rock played live by the Lost Boys, the Baron and his sidekick Stringfellow attempt to convince Pandora to lose her soul to rock and roll blasting  their way through rock anthems including songs from Meat Loaf, Rainbow, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Queen, Suzi Quatro, White Snake, Bonnie Tyler and Cher.

New Wayne Sleep Tour

Precious Little Sleep is a new tour starring Wayne Sleep. It is a celebration of his life and career, with dance routines specially choreographed by the man himself.

The next performance is at the Theatre Royal Wakefield tomorrow night, but the tour visits another 24 venues before it currently comes to an end at the Kings Theatre in Southsea on 19th April.

Glee on X Factor

Having just seen the cast of Glee perform on tonight's X Factor there is no doubt that every member of the cast can certainly belt out a number and they put out a really energetic good performance.

They are doing a UK Arena Concert Tour starting next Summer starting at London's O2 Arena 25th-26th June, 22nd June Manchester's MEN Arena and Dublin's 02 , 2nd-3rd July.

You can book tickets for the Glee Tour here

Footloose Tour

The high energy musical Footloose is touring again next year.  It starts at Newcastle on 21st January and tours the UK until 2nd July when it finishes at the Grand Theatre in Leeds.

Footloose is set in the peaceful small-town of Bomont. But  City boy Ren arrives and breaks every taboo bringing dance back to the heart of a town held back by the memory of a tragedy.

Footloose is packed full of electrifying dance routines and classic 80s anthems including Holding Out For A Hero, Almost Paradise, Let’s Hear It For The Boy and of course Footloose.

The musical is based on the hit 80s movie which launched the careers of Kevin Bacon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jon Lithgow.

Casting to date is as follows: Ren McCormack - MAX MILNER: Ethel McCormack - CARYS GRAY: Reverend Shaw Moore - STEVEN PINDER: Ariel Moore - LORNA WANT: Rusty - JODIE JACOBS: Urleen - KEISHA AMPONSA BANSON: Wendy Jo - TANYA ROBB: Lyle -- DANIEL SMITH: Travis/Cowboy Bob -- ADAM C. BOOTH: Willard Hewitt - GIOVANNI SPANO: Principal Clark - MICHAEL PALMER: Company - BEN HARRIS- SIMON CAMPBELL- KIRK BARKER- SIMON HARDWICK- NATALIE ANDREOU - SARAH KITSON - LINDSEY TIERNEY - KATY HARDS - NIKKI MULLINS. Vi Moore casting to follow.

STOP PRESS:  Matt Willis is currently appearing in Flashdance at the Shaftesbury Theatre which closes on 15th January, after which he but will be joiing the Footloose Tour as Chuck Cranston. 

You can book tickets for the tour of Footloose here

Touring musicals playing at new Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury

On Tuesday 12th October the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) will open their 39th venue in the UK with a gala at the brand new Aylesbury Waterside Theatre.

The theatre is located right in the heart of Aylesbury and boasts a 1,200 seater auditorium which converts into an 1,800 standing capacity hall. The Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury also offers a smaller 200 seater space, meeting rooms, public spaces and a waterfront café.

The theatre is expecting 300,000 people to visit them each year and offer a diverse programme of live performances including comedy, dance and the musical theatre tours listed below:

Evita	18th-30th October 2010
Lee Mead in Concert	7th November
Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat	9th-14th November
Rocky Horror Show	29th November-4th December
Annie	1st-5th February 2011
Georges Marvellous Medicine	8th-12th February
Buddy	21st-26th February
Spamalot	28th March-2nd April
Blues Brothers	18th-23rd April

New touring musicals

With the Edinburgh Festival going on August always tends to be a pretty “dead” month for musical theatre, but there are a number of new touring musicals starting up shortly with most of them booking into next year.

Just click on the links below for more details of the shows:

Touring Production	Start Date
Annie	24th August
Blues Brothers	23rd August
Buddy	21st February 2011
Chess	27th August
Christmas with the Rat Pack	25th November
Don’t Stop Believin’ (Glee)	2nd September
Gotta Sing Gotta Dance	2nd September
Scrooge (Tommy Steele)	18th October
Sunshine on Leith (Proclaimers musical)	31st August
Tell Me On A Sunday (Claire Sweeney)	30th August
Thriller Live	20th September
War of the Worlds (Jason Donovan/Rhydian)	24th November
We Will Rock You	3rd December

New tour of Gotta Sing Gotta Dance

Gotta Sing Gotta Dance is back with a new show for 2010 which features two hours of song and dance numbers from the MGM  musicals of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and West End stage hits including Phantom Of The Opera, Les Miserables, Oliver!, Wicked, Jersey Boys and Hairspray.

The tour starts at the King’s Theatre Glasgow on 2nd September and travels all over the UK until it finishes at the Theatre Royal Wakefield on 30th October.

The cast includes Craig Daniel Adams,  Lara Denning, Rebecca Lisewski, Lisa Mathieson, Philippe Reynolds, Clare Rickard and Adam Scown.

Don’t Stop Believin’ Glee Tribute Tour

Don’t Stop Believin’ is a new tour which is a tribute to Glee offering an evening of singing and dancing to songs including Don’t Stop Believin’, I’ll Stand By You, Don’t Stop Me Now, I Feel Good, You Can’t Always Get Want you Want, Single Ladies and Living on a Prayer.

Directed and Staged by Carole Todd (Dreamboats & Petticoats, Dancing in the Streets) the tour starts at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool on 2nd September and visits venues all over the UK until it ends at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield on 4th December.

New Tour of Buddy the Musical

A new tour of Buddy the musical is scheduled to start next February at Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury.  There are four more dates currently booked at the Bristol Hippodrome, Palace Theatre Manchester, Sunderland Empire and Richmond Theatre with more to come.

Buddy Holly was tragically killed in a plane crash 1959 at the age of 22, leaving behind a legacy of over 30 timeless hits. Buddy tells his story with two hours of his greatest hits including That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, True Love Ways, Oh Boy, Heartbeat and many more.

Christmas with the Rat Pack tour

A new tour of Christmas with the Rat Pack is due to start in Reading on 25th November and visit over 20 venues until it finishes in Worthing on 18th December.

The show is set in glamorous and sophisticated Las Vegas in the late 1950’s when three of the world’s most popular entertainers: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr & Dean Martin were appearing at the famous Sands hotel.

Hit follows hit including: Witchcraft, The Lady is a Tramp, Mr Bojangles, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, That’s Amore, Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime, New York, New York, My Kinda Town, Fly Me to the Moon, Sway, Volare, Me And My Shadow, My Way, Memories Are Made Of This.

Seasonal classics include: Baby it’s Cold Outside, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, White Christmas, Winter Wonderland & Auld Lang Syne

Noel Sullivan from Grease playing Galileo in We Will Rock You tour

Noel Sullivan is currently playing Danny Zuko in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre, but he is due to join the tour of We Will Rock you playing Galileo when it starts at Manchester Palace Theatre on 3rd December 2010.  The tour is currently booking until 7^th January 2012 when it finishes at Edinburgh.

Other casting to date is that Leon Lopez is playing Britney and as previously mentioned Dorothy finalist Jenny Douglas is playing Meat.

Release date of Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Cast Recording

The new live cast recording of the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Tour was on sale at the opening night at Bristol Hippodrome on Thursday 15th July but is not yet generally available.

Cast member Jon Robyns (Enjolras in the touring production) has announced via his Twitter account that the 25th Anniversary 2010 Cast Recording will be available at other tour venues and on sale nationwide from 23rd August 2010.

New Footloose Movie and tour scheduled for next year

There is a new tour of the musical Footloose scheduled for next year.  It starts rehearsals on 20th December and opens at the Theatre Royal Newcastle on 21st January 2011 and tours until July.

There is also a new film of Footloose due to be released in April 2011. It is being written and directed by Craig Brewer and stars Kenny Wormald as Ren McCormack, Julianne Hough as Ariel Moore, Dennis Quaid  as the Rev Shaw Moore and Miles Teller as Willard.


We will publish the full list of tour dates and casting news on Musical Theatre News as soon as they are available.

More UK dates added to Evita Tour

The UK and European tour of Evita is currently still in Europe playing at theatres in Germany.

But it soon returns to the UK opening at the Lowry Theatre in Salford on 6th September. And the good news is that Bill Kenwright has added some more UK dates so that it now also visits theatres in Wimbledon, Bradford, Malvern and Aylesbury before it returns to Zurich in Switzerland on 8th November.

Tommy Steele in tour of Scrooge the Musical

Bill Kenwright is mounting another tour of Scrooge the Musical at the end of this year with Tommy Steele again playing the miserly Ebenezer.

It is a short tour which starts in October at Wimbledon, visits Hull and Cardiff and then plays over the Christmas period at the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin.

New Guest Narrators on Rocky Horror Show Tour

The guest narrators have now been announced for most of this year’s remaining tour dates of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show.

The tour restarts at Woking on 30th August with Michael Starke and ends in Aylesbury on 4th December.

Two new narrators have been added to the list:  Michael Aspel will present the show at the Theatre Royal Brighton in September and Gethin Jones will done the suspenders when it hits Venue Cymru in Llandudno.

Another King Arthur joins Spamalot Tour

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke is currently playing King Arthur in the tour of Spamalot, but due to prior commitments he will not be appearing in the show when it visits Aberdeen, Cardiff, Sheffield and Torquay when James Gaddas (pictured) takes over the role.

Marcus returns when it plays at the Wycombe Swan on 8th November and is currently staying with it until it leaves York Grand Opera House on 27th November.

James Gaddas  is probably best known for playing Governor Neil Grayling in ITV's Bad Girls between 2002 and 2006. He has been appearing in Billy Elliot the Musical at the Victoria Palace Theatre playing the role of Jackie Elliot.

Presenter and comedian Matthew Kelly is taking over the crown to join the show for a limited season when it visits Milton Keynes Theatre from November 29th - December 4th 2010 and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham from 7th December 1st January 2011.

Noel Sullivan from Grease to join We Will Rock You tour

Ex Hear’Say band member Noel Sullivan has been playing Danny Zuko in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End since November 2009. Lauren Samuels who was a finalist in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Over the Rainbow joins the cast to play opposite him as Sandy from Friday 26th July.

But Sullivan is now due to leave the show later this year to join the  tour of We Will Rock You you which opens at the Palace Theatre in Manchester on 3rd December and runs until January 2012.  Prior to Grease he appeared in Fame, Flashdance and Love Shack.

Latest news on Chess Musical 2010 Tour

The new tour of Chess the Musical begins rehearsing this week without the Director as Craig Revel Horwood has posted a note on Twitter today:  “soaking up the sunshine in Greece for a week to recharge the batteries. Copa opened on Monday night and first music day for Chess. Busy beez”.

No doubt he will be joining the cast next week once the music has been set.  He has assembled a very impressive list of principals with Shona White (Wicked) as Florence Vassy: James Fox (Fame Academy Jesus Christ Superstar) the American:  Daniel Koek (West Side Story) the Russian:  Poppy Tierney (Mary Poppins Aspects of Love, Witches of Eastwick) Svetlana: James Graeme (Phantom of the Opera) Walter and David Erik (Dirty Dancing Phantom of the Opera) playing The Arbiter.

The Chess tour opens at Newcastle Theatre Royal on 27th August and currently runs until April 2011.  

Matthew Kelly to wear King Arthur's crown on Spamalot tour

Marcus Brigstocke is playing King Arthur in the UK tour of Spamalot until it finishes at York Grand Opera House 27th November.  He will be handing over his crown to actor, presenter and comedian Matthew Kelly who is joining the show for a limited season when it visits Milton Keynes theatre from November 29th - December 4th 2010 and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham from 7th December 1st January 2011.

Matthew’s Ladies of the Lake will be Amy Nuttall at Milton Keynes and Jodie Prenger at Birmingham. Todd Carty will play Patsy at both venues.

Matthew said: "I'm thrilled to be in Spamalot in Birmingham this holiday season. I'm a massive Monty Python fan and I've always looked on the bright side of life, so I'll be putting on me best chain mail to play with my chums Jodie Prenger and Todd Carty. The people of Brum have always been fantastically kind to me over the years so it's a special treat for me to be appearing in this spectacular show at the Alex."Rthur's crown in