Miss Hope Springs Comes to Assembly Rooms Edinburgh Fringe

Recovering showgirl Miss Hope Springs was once the toast of Las Vegas. Now she's down on her luck and highly medicated. Join her, live at the piano, as she dusts off an array of all-original toe-tapping show tunes, finger-snapping pop and heartrending ballads from her fabulous vintage repertoire and presents her unique brand of 'sit down' comedy. You'll hear hilarious stories about her Ritz to the pits life in LA, Paris and...Dungeness. Still draped in the sequins and feathers she fled the Pink Pelican Casino wearing in 1972, this ageing ingénue is no has-been, she's the ultimate never-was.

"Think Minnelli meets Manilow" explains Hope's creator: composer, lyricist, pianist, comic actor and singer Ty Jeffries "minus the lucky breaks. Growing up in a show business family, I was completely obsessed with Golden Age Hollywood and my work is hugely influenced by artists such as Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Marlene Dietrich and Lena Horne. However, unlike them, with her backstory of career wrong-turns and a spectacularly disastrous love life, Hope is the tragi-comic essence of all those showbiz ladies who never made it."

Ty grew up between Pinewood and Hollywood while his father, the late actor and film director Lionel Jeffries, was making movies such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Camelot. He was taught his first jazz chords by Sir John Mills and once danced down Sunset Blvd with Fred Astaire. Shirley MacLaine, Shelley Winters and Diana Dors were all family friends and his close observation of those women at first hand lends authenticity to his 'stellar portrayal of a jaded, faded star' (Fringe Review). Classically trained at The Purcell School of Music, he is the star of Le Crazy Coqs in London's West End and has toured both the UK and USA, including The Lincoln Centre in NYC. He even put the wig in The Wigmore Hall when he performed a sold-out solo concert at London's classical Valhalla. With fans as varied as Will Young, Marc Almond, Pete Waterman and Rula Lenska, you know you are in extremely capable theatrical hands.

To post a comment, you must register and login.