Australian actor Simon Burke is to join Torchwood star John Barrowman in La Cage Aux Folles this autumn. The pair will replace Philip Quast and Roger Allam as lovers Georges and Albin from 14 September.
Burke, who recently appeared in the Almeida theatre production of When The Rain Stops Falling, was last seen in a London musical when he appeared as Captain von Trapp in The Sound Of Music in 2007. An experienced musical theatre performer, his London credits include The Phantom Of The Opera and A Little Night Music, while in his native Australia he has appeared in Anything Goes, Les Misérables and Chicago.
Burke will play nightclub owner Georges – the role currently played by fellow Australian Quast – opposite Barrowman’s drag queen Albin/Zaza in the Laurence Olivier Award-winning production that tells of the lengths the couple go to when they find Georges’s son’s future in-laws – a right-wing politician and his wife – will be paying them a visit.
The hit production originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory in the winter of 2007, when Douglas Hodge played Albin/Zaza opposite Quast. The production transferred to the Playhouse theatre in October 2008, going on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production earlier this year.
MA