Janie Dee Discusses a Life in Showbiz as the Singular Sensations Season Continues at the Charing Cross Theatre on Remembrance Sunday, November 10th 2013

Singular Sensations continues its autumn run at the Charing Cross Theatre as the multi-talented Janie Dee joins Edward Seckerson on Remembrance Sunday, Sunday 10th November at 3pm to talk about her glittering career.

With a TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical (Hello Dolly) joining her two Olivier, Evening Standard and Critic's Circle Awards on an already heaving mantelpiece last week, few performers of Dee's generation have proved themselves as versatile. A renowned and skilled interpreter of the works of Harold Pinter and Alan Ayckbourn to cabaret chanteuse, Dee discusses an award-winning career intersecting the afternoon with intimate live performances.

In honour of Remembrance Sunday, Janie will be dedicating a special part of the show to those who have lost their lives in warfare. A passionate anti-war campaigner, Dee conceptualised and produced 2003's Concert For Peace which brought together some of the biggest names in theatre - including such west-end glitterati as Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Alison Steadman, Adrian Lester, Samantha Bond, Sian Phillips and Lindsay Duncan - for a one-off anti-Iraq protest show. It was here that Janie first met, and developed, her enduring friendship and working relationship with fellow promoter of peace, the late Harold Pinter.

Edward Seckerson - formerly the presenter of BBC Radio 3's long-running musical theatre show Stage and Screen is to host a series of in-depth encounters with stars of musical theatre at London's Charing Cross Theatre.

This winter's inaugural season of intimate sessions will become a regular Sunday afternoon fixture for musical theatre enthusiasts. Through a mix of chat, recordings, and live performance Seckerson will be tracing these talented artists' careers and uncovering insights into their working process. Kerry Ellis, Howard Goodall, Janie Dee and Jenna Russell will all perform live. John Wilson and Patricia Routledge will share favourite or treasured recordings.

AUTUMN/WINTER SEASON

15 Sept 2013 - Kerry Ellis

6 Oct 2013 - Howard Goodall

10 Nov 2013 - Janie Dee

8 Dec 2013 - John Wilson

19 Jan 2014 - Patricia Routledge

26 Jan 2014 - Jenna Russell

All performances start at 3pm

Kerry Ellis amassed a legion of adoring fans when she went "green" playing Elphaba in Stephen Schwartz' smash-hit musical Wicked both in London and on Broadway. But her pre-eminence as a musical-theatre-diva-cum-rock-chick was secured earlier still when Brian May, the celebrated lead guitarist of Queen, asked her to play Meat in the Queen/Ben Elton show We Will Rock You. May quickly recognised a symbiosis between them and their CD single Wicked in Rock sprung a rip-roaring reimagining of Defying Gravity with Brian May's amazing guitar riffs a key feature. Kerry has toured extensively with May and their second album together Acoustic By Candlelight has recently been released.

Howard Goodall is an award-winning composer of musicals - including the iconic The Hired Man and more recently Love Story - choral and TV music including The Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, and Red Dwarf. As a TV presenter his recent BBC 2 series and its accompanying book The Story of Music made waves and he can be heard as both presenter and composer-in-residence on Classic FM. In 2009 he was named Composer of the Year at the Classical BRIT Awards.

Janie Dee is a two-time Olivier Award winner and one of the most versatile talents on the English stage. From Shakespeare to Pinter she never fails to dazzle. Her work in musical theatre has ranged from Nicholas Hytner's celebrated production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the National Theatre (which brought her first Olivier) to Jerry Herman's Mack and Mabel with David Soul and her highly praised Dolly Levi in the Leicester Curve production in Herman's Hello Dolly. She's an accomplished cabaret artist with a growing repertoire of material.

John Wilson and the orchestra which bears his name created an absolute sensation at the 2009 Proms with their celebration of 75 years of MGM musicals. 3.5 million people watched the relay live; countless more all over the world will relive the experience on DVD. John has made a speciality of restoring and recreating great movie scores and presenting them in all their very particular glory in concert halls up and down the UK. Wilson is a master of style and sonority and his orchestra has no equal anywhere in the world right now. A Wilson Prom is now a yearly event and this year he and the orchestra are showcasing their MGM tribute in Hollywood itself.

Patricia Routledge the popular TV actress who has also enjoyed an award-winning career in drama and musical theatre Known to millions as the pretentious Hyacinth Bucket ("It's pronounced Bouquet") in the BBC TV sit-com Keeping Up Appearances, Patricia Routledge is also one of our finest stage actresses. A 60-year career has seen her playing everything from Shakespeare to musical theatre. Musical theatre? Eyebrows are probably being raised in surprise. The public it seems are stuck with an image of Routledge as the aforementioned Hyacinth or as her other best known TV character, the private investigator Hetty Wainthropp. Yet her CV is positively bulging with roles in which her training as a classical singer has come to the fore. Her many awards include a Tony for her Broadway performance in the Styne-Harburg musical Darling of the Day and a Laurence Olivier Award for Leonard Bernstein's Candide. She also played Nettie Fowler in the highly acclaimed production of Carousel at the National Theatre and has made occasional forays into operetta.

Jenna Russell recently wowed West End audiences with her heartbreaking performance as Mary Flynn in Maria Friedman's production of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. As Dot in Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (also originating at the Menier Chocolate Factory) she won the 2007 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical and was Drama Desk and Tony nominated for her performance in New York. Indeed Sondheim has been a calling card throughout her career starting with Young Sally in the 1987 London staging of Follies at the Shaftesbury Theatre and progressing to Into the Woods in which she appeared twice - as Cinderella in the 1998 Donmar Warehouse production and as the Baker's Wife in Tim Sheader's 2010 Regent's Park staging. She was Bertrande in Boublil and Schönberg's much-revampEd Martin Guerre and Sarah Brown in Michael Grandage's 2005 revival of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls. On TV she will be familiar to many as Deborah Gilder in Born and Bred.

Host EDWARD SECKERSON is formerly Chief Classical Music Critic of The Independent. He is a writer, broadcaster, podcaster, and musical theatre obsessive. He wrote and presented the long-running BBC Radio 3 series Stage & Screen, in which he interviewed many of the biggest names in the business - among them Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Liza Minnelli, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. During his journalistic career he has written for most major music publications and is still on the panel of Gramophone magazine. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and presented the 2007 series of the musical quiz Counterpoint. On television, he has commentated a number of times at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He has published books on Mahler and the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Edward conducted one of the last major interviews with Leonard Bernstein and his audio podcast Sondheim - In Good Company proved a significant contribution to Sondheim's 80th birthday year. He is currently touring with Patricia Routledge in Facing the Music, a show chronicling her little known career in musical theatre.

LISTINGS INFO

Charing Cross Theatre

The Arches

Villiers Street

London

WC2N 6NL

Box Office: 08444 930 650

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE 3pm Specified Sunday Performances

TICKET PRICES £17.50

WEBSITE www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

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