Theatre Interviews with Top West End Stars

Sara Bareilles and Gavin Creel: A Waitress dream team reunite in the West End

Approaching its one-year anniversary in the West End, Waitress follows Jenna Hunterson, a small-town woman who enters a pie-making competition in the hopes of winning a cash prize to start a new life. It's been the talk of the town in recent weeks, with Desi Oakley flown over from the US to step into the production after the lead and covers were unable to perform, proving that the show really does go on in the West End.But, it's not often that a musical's composer themself appears in their own...

Jenna Russell: 'Everything was telling me that doing this role was wrong, wrong, wrong'

The West End may have produced bigger musical theatre stars than Jenna Russell, but few, I'd wager, who radiate more sincerity, both onstage and off, or whose performances elicit a warm glow of empathy in audiences.In shows from Michael Grandage's revival of Guys and Dolls, for which she earned an Olivier nomination in 2006, and Sunday in the Park with George, for which she won the Olivier the following year, to Merrily We Roll Along (another Olivier-nominated performance), Urinetown and Fun...

Jac Yarrow interview: 'The entire Joseph process has been a surreal one'

More than one critic - myself included - reached for the superlative "a star is born" when describing the West End debut of Jac Yarrow in the title role of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: "He received a spontaneous standing ovation on the first night at the end of his rendition of "Close Every Door"; but this is a performance that will open every door to him from here on in."Opening night was just four days ago when I met him backstage at the London Palladium, London's premiere...

Lizzy Connolly interview - 'You'll have never seen a Sweet Charity like this before'

Josie Rourke's final production of her seven-year tenure as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse opens this week, as she directs Anne-Marie Duff in Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields and Neil Simon's Sweet Charity.Alongside Duff's Charity, an optimistic New York dancer-for-hire with terrible luck with men, is Lizzy Connolly as fellow dancer and friend Nickie. Connolly makes her Donmar debut having previously starred in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy, On The Town at Regent's Park Open Air...

Alex Kingston, Sarah Hadland and cast talk Admissions ahead of London premiere

Set in the admissions department of an American high school, Joshua Harmon's play Admissions poses a lot of tricky questions around privilege and quotas, and proves that answering these questions isn't as simple as it may seem. The play stars Alex Kingston, the head of the department who is pushing for better inclusion in the school's student body, and better representation across the institution's image. But her morals are put to the test when her own son faces the realities on the other end of...

Natalie McQueen: I'm playing Dolly Parton's character on 9 to 5, but putting my own spin on it

There's pressure when any performer takes to the stage in a major musical in the West End, that comes with the territory. But it's surely amplified when you're playing a role made famous by the legend whose name is above the door, in the musical titled after her biggest hit?It doesn't bother Natalie McQueen. She's currently playing Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5 the Musical, the role Dolly Parton played in the 1980 hit movie, and, while she's been paying close attention to the way Dolly walks and...

Tracy-Ann Oberman: ‘With Pinter, you don’t always need to understand why you’re saying something’

The West End has been lately upping its game when it comes to serious theatre, with recent hits like The Jungle (the astonishing immersive production that took audiences into the heart of a Calais refugee camp) and The Inheritance (offering an intimate and shattering account of gay experience in the wake of the legacy of HIV/AIDS and the generation that was lost to it).But one of the more extraordinarily ambitious seasons of late has been to honour the late, great playwright Harold Pinter, at...

Katy Lipson: 'If I'm raising millions in the next few years, I'll use it to champion new musicals'

Having written about a fair few season announcements at theatres across London over the past few years, it's almost expected that a programme full of 'new work' and 'world premieres' will be stuffed with plays - musicals often hardly get a look in. However, one producer has made it somewhat of a mission to bring as many new, fresh musicals to stages as humanly possible.Katy Lipson and her company Aria Entertainment have been a recent success story over the last few years, mounting fringe...

Dean Chisnall interview - 'Now I'm in Les Miserables, I feel like I've hit the jackpot'

This summer's Les Miserables cast change brings Dean Chisnall back to the West End stage, having spent time last year working at fringe theatres for the first time in his career.Chisnall has previously played the title role in Shrek at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and had parts in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White at the Palace Theatre, and Love Never Dies at the Adelphi. He returns to the West End this summer as Jean Valjean, but this comes after his first foray into the fringe, where he...

Tyrone Huntley interview - 'This is far beyond what I ever thought would happen in my career'

Last summer, the reviews for Jesus Christ Superstar could have seen the show re-dubbed Tyrone Huntley Superstar. In the Guardian, Lyn Gardner declared, "Tyrone Huntley is brilliant as Judas, a young fanatic who is watchful and isolated from the start." In the Independent, Paul Taylor amplified and enthused: "The damned-either-way dilemma of Judas is conveyed with terrific ferocity by Tyrone Huntley, whose voice can slice and swing and soar into tormented falsetto." The young actor, who is now 27...