COMING HOME: Adam Bailey, soon to star in the West End production of Jersey Boys at the Trafalgar Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back!

Even though the theatre world has a long way to go until we’re fully back, there are so many exciting things happening which we mustn’t forget about, long-running West End favourites reopening their doors along with new pieces of theatre and even revivals. Jersey Boys being one of them. Last seen in the West End in 2017, this much-loved show returns, playing in the newly refurbished Trafalgar Theatre. 

Adam Bailey, last seen in the West End production of The Book of Mormon at the Prince of Wales Theatre (where our shoot took place), will play the role of Bob Gaudio in the shows return to London. Before the pandemic hit, Adam was a Swing and first cover Elder Price in the West End musical. The Book of Mormon was Adams West End debut, which was a long time coming! His CV is extensive and we were surprised the West End hadn’t snapped him up sooner! Prior to appearing in the Book of Mormon, he had played Morgan in the UK tour of the Dusty Springfield Musical ‘Dusty’, played Munkustrap in the South Korean tour of Cats and played the lead role of Adam/Felicia in the UK tour of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. His long CV also includes Starlight Express, Chicago, Bare, Grease, Taboo, Jest End and Edges. 

COMING HOME: Lewis Cornay, soon to be starring in John & Jen at the Southwark Playhouse

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Lewis Cornay is someone with fingers in many, many pies (his words, not mine). With a fantastic career in musical theatre, he also works as a writer and photographer. Not long before theatres shut their doors, Lewis was appearing in the West End production of The Book of Mormon and had just left the show in Feb 2020 after a year with the production. He’s also appeared in Just So at the Barn Theatre, was in the UK Tour of Titanic the Musical, played Ryder in Paw Patrol Live and as a child appeared in The King and I, The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. 

We met with Lewis fresh from the announcement that he’ll be starring in John & Jen, the world premiere of the brand new updated musical from Andrew Lippa, Tom Greenwald and Jason Robert Brown. We shot with him at the Southwark Playhouse which is where the show will be running from the 28th July to the 21st August 2021. He’ll be starring opposite musical theatre legend Rachel Tucker and will be under the direction of her partner, Guy Retallack. 

COMING HOME: Nicole-Lily Baisden, soon to be starring in Anything Goes at the Barbican Centre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Nicole-Lily Baisden only graduated from Arts Educational Schools in 2019 and pretty much went straight into her first professional job, as she played Nabulungi in the original UK & International touring production of The Book of Mormon. The tour opened in June 2019, so they had a reasonable run before the theatres shut down but still, unfortunately, didn’t fulfil the full list of touring dates they had prepared themselves for. 

Nicole-Lily has recently been announced as playing the role of Hope Harcourt in the London revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican, featuring a full star line up! She’ll be starring alongside the likes of Broadway legend Sutton Foster, Robert Lindsay, Felicity Kendal and Gary Wilmot as well as West End regulars Samuel Edwards, Haydn Oakley and Carly Mercedes Dyer. 

The Best Onstage Quick Changes in Musical Theatre!

I am an absolute sucker for a quick change and an onstage quick change, I am all for! The little theatre kid in me absolutely LIVES for these in musicals because that's what I used to pretend to do in my bedroom (just me...?). The designers on these shows are incredible and do not get enough credit in general but certainly don't get the credit they deserve for these cool and innovative changes on stage! Take a look at our list and tweet us ones we've missed! 

Mean Girls | Cady Hearon in Revenge Party

Heathers | Heather Duke in Never Shut up Again 

Best Understudy and Cover Stories of 2019

Standbys, understudies, alternates and swings are integral to the running of a show. They save the day on a daily bases all around the country in all kinds of shows. In a time where some shows champion their covers on social media and in the actual theatres, some shows still restrict the cast members on the publication of dates and information about their cover dates. But to prove how incredible they actually are, we looked back at the past year with our friends at @WestEndCovers and put together a list of the Best Understudy and Cover stories of 2019!  

"This year the recognition for standbys and alternates has been greater than any before. Some newer shows with smaller casts like Six, Come From Away and Dear Evan Hansen rely on their standbys (who do not perform unless on for one of their cover roles) and alternates (who weekly scheduled shows as their cover) rather than the more common understudy and swing model for shows with a larger ensemble. The difference is that understudies may be a member of the ensemble or a swing who steps up to cover a principle role and a swing steps in to cover ensemble tracks." - @WestEndCovers 

And we must mention but our beloved West End Understudies account are in their 5th Year in 2020!  Here's to the next 5 years of celebrating our fantastic covers all across the theatre industry! 

Take a look at some of these extrodinary stories and tweet us any you think we missed out! @PocketSizeBlog

Theatre Tickets: Every West End shows top and lowest price ticket!

Theatre has been critiqued a lot over the past few years at how expensive the tickets are so we thought we'd take a look at the official box offices and compare their highest price ticket to the lowest. What can you get for your money in the West End? Lets find out!

To make it fair, we looked at the same date (August 17th 2019, 7.30pm) for every show and have compared the most expensive seat available to the cheapest available for this day. 

Hamilton tops and bottoms both our lists, its the most expensive theatre ticket in London at £250 and has the most expensive cheapest ticket which comes in at £100. If you are on the UK minimum wage (£8.21, for someone 25 and over) you would have to work about 30 hours to afford a premium seat. A family of 4 would cost £1,000, equal to about 122 hours of work on minimum wage. 

The Lion King closely follows as one of the most expensive at £228.50 followed by Wicked and The Book of Mormon at just over £202 each. 

If we look at the cheapest seats available through official box offices School of Rock, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Only Fools and Horses are all priced at £15 closely followed The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ and Six at £19.50. 

For £20 (Almost 2 and a half hours work on the national minimum wage) you can see Everybody's Talking About Jamie, The Lion King, Fiddler on the Roof, Matilda and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This article was written in July 2019. Ticket prices may have changed or altered since our research. 

Casting announced for UK and international tour of The Book of Mormon

The cast has been announced for the first UK and international tour of The Book of Mormon as the show extends its run at Manchester Palace Theatre.

The musical, which will open in Manchester in June, will be led by Kevin Clay as Elder Price and Conner Peirson as Elder Cunningham, who both played their respective roles in the Broadway and US touring productions of the musical.

Joining them will be Nicole-Lily Baisden as Nabulungi, William Hawksworth as Elder McKinley, Ewen Cummins as Mafala Hatimbi, Johnathan Tweedie as Joseph Smith and Thomas Vernal as the General.

The company will include Sanchia Amber Clarke, Jed Berry, David Brewis, Melissa Brown-Taylor, Chinasa, Tre Copeland-Williams, George Crawford, Jordan Lee Davies, Jemal Felix, Patrick George, Isaac Hesketh, M-Jae Cleopatra Isaac, Evan James, Alex James-Hatton, Nicole Louise, Fergal McGoff, Jesus Reyes Ortiz, Lawrence Rowe, Lukin Simmonds, Chomba S Taulo, Brad Veitch, Tommy Wade-Smith, Sharon Wattis and Jacob Yarlett.

NEW CAST announced for The Book of Mormon

From 28 July 2014, the cast of the Olivier Award-winning The Book of Mormon, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, will be led by Billy Harrigan Tighe as Elder Price and A.J. Holmes as Elder Cunningham.

The full cast continues to include Alexia Khadime, Stephen Ashfield, Kevin Harvey, Hugo Harold Harrison, and Chris Jarman with Mark Anderson, Benjamin Brook, Daniel Clift, Christopher Copeland, Ashley Day, Keisha T Fraser, Patrick George, Nadine Higgin, Evan James, Aisha Jawando, Michael Kent, Sia Kiwa, Joshua Liburd, Daniel MacKinlay, David McMullan, Felix Mosse, Tanya Nicole-Edwards, Terel Nugent, David O’Reilly, Lucy St. Louis, Ashley Samuels, Rhys Taylor, Kayi Ushe, Michael Vinsen and Tosh Wanogho-Maud.            

Olivier Awards: Full list of Nominations

BEST ACTOR

Nominees:

Henry Goodman for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Duchess Theatre 
Tom Hiddleston at Coriolanus at Donmar Warehouse
Rory Kinnear for Othello at the National Theatre, Olivier 
Jude Law for Henry V at the Noel Coward Theatre 

BEST ACTRESS

Nominees:

Hayley Atwell for The Pride at the Trafalgar Studios 

Anna Chancellor for Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre 

Judi Dench for Peter and Alice at the Noel Coward Theatre

Lesley Manville for Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre & Trafalgar Studios 

WhatsOnStage Awards: Full List of Winners and Nominees

Best Actress in a Play

Winner: Helen Mirren The Audience (the Gielgud)

Nominees:

Anne-Marie Duff Strange Interlude (NT Lyttelton)
Hayley Atwell The Pride (Trafalgar Studios)
Helen Mirren The Audience (the Gielgud)
Suranne Jones Beautiful Thing (the Arts)
Tanya Moodie Fences (the Duchess)

Best Actor in a Play

Winner: Daniel Radcliffe The Cripple of Inishmaan (the Noël Coward)

Nominees: 

Ben Whishaw Peter and Alice (the Noël Coward) and Mojo (the Harold Pinter)
Daniel Radcliffe The Cripple of Inishmaan (the Noël Coward)

James McAvoy Macbeth (Trafalgar Studios)
Lenny Henry Fences (the Duchess)
Rory Kinnear Othello (the NT Olivier)

Gavin Creel | Interview

Gavin Creel is currently starring in the West End production of The Book of Mormon as Elder Price after playing the role of the first U.S tour. His credits include the North American Tour of Fame playing Nick Piazza, Honk! as Ugly, Bat Boy (Off-Broadway), Jimmy Smith in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Broadway, nominated for a Tony Award), Jean-Michel in La Cage aux Folles (Broadway), Bert in Mary Poppins (West End) and Claude in Hair (Broadway and West End, nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama League Award). He released his first solo album, Goodtimenation, in 2006 and has released two more since then. I was lucky enough to catch up with Gavin… 

How did you originally start getting involved in performing arts?

I was a musical kid all growing up. I took piano, trumpet, was in a bunch of choirs at church and I guess I also liked to show off being the youngest of three kids. It just grew from there i think. I found I enjoyed performing, who doesn't love attention?! And I may be a bit of an attention seeker (again...who isn't?  Especially in this business!)  but once I decided to major in musical theatre in college my parents completely supported me in that decision, I knew that my path was pretty clear. Well, at least where I was going, not necessarily the result. 

Alexia Khadime | Interview

Alexia Khadime is currently playing Eponine in Les Miserable at the Queens Theatre. Alexia's West End debut was in The Lion King where she appeared in the Ensemble and covered the role of Nala which she later returned to the show to play full time after her time playing Candy in the UK Tour of Whistle Down the Wind. She played the role of Nala for four years until she left the show in 2008. From June to November in 2008 she took over the role of Elphaba in Wicked while Kerry Ellis went over to Broadway to play the role, she later returned to the role in May 2009 and was succeeded by Rachel Tucker in 2010. After Wicked she was in Welcome to the Thebes at the Royal National Theatre and played Deb in Ordinary Days at Trafalgar Studios. Her TV credits include Grange Hill, The Bill, The Queens Nose and Comin' Atcha. She can be heard on Act One - Songs From The Musicals Of Alexander S. Bermange, her own single 'Ring' and the Amazing Grace and Pride film soundtracks. She was very kind to fit us in with her very busy schedule and to talk about her wonderful career...

Your career ranges from a wide variety of things, you must be very proud of all the things you've done in the past! Are there any special memories you have collected from these that stick out from the rest?

They are all just so different. What I like is they individually have helped me to grow as a performer so they all stick out for me. Something's have been bigger than other but hey all just really count a lot.

From doing TV and theatre you are obviously very familiar with the similarities and differences, what are your favourite and least favourite things about both?I like with theatre you get one chance and you can't say CUT. Least favourite thing is not getting to see family very much as we have 1 day off a week. TV is exciting because it's always changing like new lines etc, so you're always growing. Least favourite thing is the days can be very very very long and sometimes there lots of waiting around. I remember having call time at 6am and not finishing till really late!