Christmas In New York, the annual musical theatre celebration of all things festive and seasonal, returns to the West End this December.
West End stars including Julie Atherton, Samuel Barnett, Daniel Boys, Ashleigh Gray, Leanne Jones, Paul Spicer, Oliver Tompsett, Hannah Waddingham and Rachael Wooding will lead the tinsel-tastic event which is to be held at the Prince of Wales theatre on 6 December.
Now in its fourth year, Christmas In New York is a festive offering from the team behind the hugely successful Notes From New York series of events which brought the work of contemporary musical theatre composers to the West End stage.
First staged at the Apollo theatre in 2006, before moving to the Lyric theatre in 2007 and 2008, the wintry evening of classic carols and seasonal songs has become so popular that it has moved to the larger Prince of Wales theatre for its fourth instalment of mulled wine and mince pie flavoured music.
The show’s cast comprises some of the West End’s hottest young talent. Jones won a Laurence Olivier Award for her West End debut playing Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray opposite Wooding, Tompsett and Gray are colleagues in Wicked, and Atherton has, until recently, been performing opposite Boys in puppet musical Avenue Q.
Spicer recently appeared in The Last 5 Years, also opposite Atherton, and Barnett was in the original cast of The History Boys and has this year been seen on screen playing John Millais in Desperate Romantics. Waddingham led the cast of A Little Night Music earlier this year and previously played The Lady Of The Lake in Monty Python’s Spamalot.
While Christmas In New York comes to the Prince of Wales theatre for one sleighbell-ringing Sunday night only, the theatre’s regular show Mamma Mia! continues to draw in Abba-loving crowds and is currently booking to 26 March 2011.
MA