Australian Hit SONGS FOR NOBODIES To Have Its European Premiere At Wilton's Music Hall In 2018

Wilton's Music Hall will host the European première of Songs For Nobodies (running 21 March - 7 April), a brand new play with songs featuring music from five iconic divas; Judy Garland, Pasty Cline, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf and Maria Callas. Accompanied by live musicians, this funny and moving performance was written especially for Bernadette Robinson by Joanna Murray-Smith (Honour, Bombshells, The Female of the Species) and directed by Simon Phillips (Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the Musical).

This one-woman show is driven by the astonishing talents of singer and actress Bernadette Robinson, who takes audiences on a musical and emotional journey with five short stories following the word's greatest divas and their extraordinary encounters with normal women - the "nobodies."

Blurring the lines between superstardom and the everyday, Bernadette seamlessly brings each character to life as her remarkable control of tone, accent and vocal style perfectly inhabits each legendary singer. From the smoky blues of Holiday to the thrilling soprano of Callas via Garland, Cline and Piaf, Bernadette's miraculous voice breathes new life into the five legendary performers and the five ordinary women whose lives were changed by their brush with fame.

Recounting intimate tale of their encounters is the heartbroken bathroom attendant who mends Garland's hem the night she performed at Carnegie Hall, the backing singer who lives a dream with Cline the day she's killed in a plane crash, the ambitious New York Times reporter assigned to interview Holiday, the Irish nanny who witnessed the fraying relationship between Callas and her shipping magnate and the English librarian who talks of how the 'Little Sparrow' rescued her father from a concentration camp during the war.

Director Simon Phillips commented: 'Ever since I sat stunned at a Bernadette Robinson concert not believing my ears, I wanted to create a show for her, something that put her miraculous ability to reincarnate the great singing voices of the past into a rich theatrical context. So I knocked on the obvious door. Joanna Murray-Smith places the dramatic focus not on the stars themselves but the unknown women for whom these fragile singers were sources of strength."

Bernadette Robinson's critically acclaimed performances in multiple sell-out seasons of the one-woman musical play Songs For Nobodies and Pennsylvania Avenue have confirmed her standing as one of Australia's leading singers/actresses. Together with eventual winner Cate Blanchett, Bernadette was nominated for a Helpmann Award (Australia's Olivier Awards) in 2012 as Best Female Actor In a Play. Bernadette played the role of Beatrice in Nick Enright and Terry Clarke's The Venetian Twins, and has appeared in lead roles with Chamber Made Opera and Wellington City Opera. She is a familiar figure on Australian concert stages, having given sell out concerts at the Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Festival Centre, the Melbourne Recital Centre and its neighbour, Hamer Hall, and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. In addition to her one-woman shows, Bernadette has had great success performing at high profile events for large corporates across Australia and (singing in English and in local languages) in Tokyo, Beijing (during the 2008 Olympic Games), Shanghai (during the 2010 World Expo), Hong Kong, Macau, Buenos Aires, Singapore, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto.

Joanna Murray Smith was born in Melbourne and has worked and travelled for most of her life, after attending Melbourne University and the Writing Program at Columbia University in New York. Joanna's plays have been produced and translated all over the world and have appeared on Broadway, the West End and at the Royal National Theatre in London.

Some of her plays include American Song, Three Little Words, Switzerland, Pennsylvania Avenue, Fury, Songs for Nobodies, Day One - A Hotel - Evening, The Gift, Rockabye, The Female of the Species, Ninety, Bombshells, Rapture, Nightfall, Redemption, Flame, Love Child, Atlanta, Honour and Angry Young Penguins. She has also adapted Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage for Sir Trevor Nunn (Coventry/London) and Hedda Gabler.

Most of her plays have been published by Currency Press or Dramatist's Play Service (U.S.) or Nick Hern Books (UK). Several of her plays have been adapted for Australian radio and for the BBC.

Joanna and her work have been shortlisted and won many prizes. Her work includes three novels published by Penguin/Viking and two operas, Love in the Age of Therapy and The Divorce. She also writes for the screen. U.S. Variety described Joanna as "Australia's foremost female playwright".

Simon Philips began his career in New Zealand before emigrating to Australia in 1984. He was appointed Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia from 1990-94 and Artistic Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company from 2000-11.His directing credits range from contemporary and Shakespearean classics to musicals to opera. He has also directed the premières of many new works by leading Australian writers.

Apart from Priscilla, Simon's musical credits include Oliver!, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cabaret, High Society, Company, The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Urinetown the Musical, The Drowsy Chaperone, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and a new Australian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies, which was released internationally on DVD. His production of Ladies in Black, a new Australian musical created with his wife, Carolyn Burns, and Tim Finn (of Split Enz fame) was an acclaimed success in Australia. Most recently, his production of North By North West premièred at the Theatre Royal Bath.

East London gem Wilton's Music Hall re-opened the doors to its Grade II listed building in 2015 after extensive refurbishment. The oldest Grand Music Hall in the world, they are fast becoming one of the country's most vibrant multi-arts venues, home to a year-round programme of live music and theatre productions which have been seen by over 40,000 people in the past year alone. It also houses two main bars which are much-loved destinations in their own right, serving a carefully selected range of beers, wines and spirits. Their delicious menu of seasonal dishes and small plates is designed by in-house caterers Gatherers and inspired by Wiltons' distinctive heritage. Wilton's is not open on Bank Holidays.

https://www.wiltons.org.uk/

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