Don’t miss your last chance to catch Strictly Come Dancing winner Tom Chambers before he leaves the show Top Hat the musical on 2 February 2013, after wowing audiences and dazzling critics starring as Jerry Travers. Tom currently stars alongside Charlotte Gooch as Dale Tremont. Tony and Olivier award nominee Gavin Lee and Broadway star Kristen Beth Williams take over the iconic roles of Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont from 5 February 2013 at the Aldwych theatre in the heart of London’s West End.
Gavin Lee is an English actor who recently starred as Bert on Broadway in the musical Mary Poppins. Gavin previously created the role in the original London production.
Gavin was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Musical at the 2005 Olivier Awards and the 2005 Theatregoer’s Choice Awards for originating the West End role of Bert. For his Broadway performance, Gavin was nominated for the 2006 Outer Critics Circle Awards (Outstanding Actor in a Musical) and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He also won the 2007 Drama Desk Award for Featured Actor in a Musical and an award for Outstanding Broadway Debut at the 63rd annual Theatre World Awards
Broadway actress Kristen Beth Williams is to join the cast of Top Hat from February, playing Dale Tremont. Kristen Williams has appeared in Nice Work If You Can Get It and Anything Goes on Broadway.
Also joining the cast in February will be Alex Gaumond, whose West End theatre credits include We Will Rock You and Legally Blonde the Musical. Clive Hayward, who was recently in Yes Prime Minister at the Trafalgar Studios, also joins the cast from next month.
Top Hat, which has music by Irving Berlin and is based on the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film of the same name, and is now booking through until April, 2014.
The show in London is directed by Matthew White with choreography by Bill Deamer.
Top Hat brings the glamour of Hollywood’s golden age and the glorious, tap-dancing magic of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to the West End in one of the greatest dance musicals of all time.
Tim Walker of The Sunday Telegraph writes, “This is the most sublimely performed, choreographed, orchestrated and costumed musical I have seen in the last 25 years. I can’t ever see London – or me tiring of it. It is sublime”.
The film Top Hat first hit cinema screens back in 1935 and it has since been remembered as one of the great movie musicals. Now, more than 75 years after audiences first relished in the antics of American dancer Jerry Travers (portrayed onscreen by Fred Astaire) Top Hat is on stage at London’s Aldwych Theatre.
Top Hat is a musical comedy which follows Jerry Travers as he arrives in London to appear in a stage show produced by Horace Hardwick. Things do not go according to plan and pretty soon a case of mistaken identity and romance sends things off course. Travers attempts to win the heart of Dale Tremond but she mistakes him for producer Hardwick, the new, as yet unseen, husband of her friend. His advances horrify her as he attempts to gain her hand in marriage.
The show is littered with classic Irving Berlin songs including: Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, Cheek to Cheek, Let’s Face the Music and Dance.
