Cast - Claire Sweeney

Claire Sweeney is one of the UK's best loved personalities with a string of credits to her name on stage and screen. Trained at the Elliott Clarke Stage School in Liverpool and the Italia Conti Stage School in London, her highly acclaimed work has included playing the regular character of Lindsey Corkhill in Brookside, the fiery character Katrina in the award-winning drama Clocking Off and Roz in BBC1's hit drama Merseybeat. Claire's most recent television project is a brand new drama for BBC One called Candy Cabs which will broadcast in Spring 2011.
As a television presenter, Claire authored a one-hour primetime documentary for ITV1 called Claire Sweeney: My Big Fat Diet. She presented four series of 60 Minute Make-over (ITV1) and hosted Saturday night shows Here Comes the Sun (BBC1) and Challenge of a Lifetime (ITV1). She has also presented three live specials called I'm Famous and Frightened for Living TV, as well as appearing in the first and most successful series of Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother. Claire is a regular panelist on Loose Women and has also enjoyed taking part in The Royal Variety Show, Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Come Dine With Me.
In the West End, roles include Roxie Hart in Chicago and Miss Adelaide opposite Patrick Swayze in the award-winning production of Guys and Dolls. Claire headlined in Fosse - the World Tour and starred in the first ever UK production of the musical Shout! She has also performed duets with international opera stars Bryn Terfel and José Carreras at the Royal Albert Hall. Claire took part in the 10th anniversary gala performance of Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre in London, where principal cast members from the last 10 years returned for a special one off performance. She has also appeared as the celebrity guest star in the successful West End and Broadway play based on the work of Morecambe & Wise, The Play What I Wrote.
Claire has worked as the Forces Sweetheart entertaining British troops abroad and was the first entertainer to visit the troops in Afghanistan and Oman. Claire was delighted and honoured to perform at A Party to Remember, broadcast live on BBC1 from Trafalgar Square in celebration of VE Day, and sang live at the Royal Albert Hall for VE Day live on the BBC. She also mesmerised TV audiences at the Festival of Commemoration in Horse Guards Parade performing live to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in the presence of HM The Queen.
Claire's solo album, simply entitled Claire, was highly successful, topping the UK charts top five and she has recently contributed to the album Give Me a Smile, a compilation of songs with the legendary composer and conductor Carl Davis. In summer 2010, Claire took part in a series of concerts with Carl called Battle of Britain - 70th Anniversary, where she performed with three of the country's finest orchestras.
Claire has been the face of Marks and Spencer and was recently seen in TV commercials as the ambassador for Park Hampers.
Among her various charity works she is a patron for Claire House Children's Hospice, works as an HIV/AIDS Ambassador for Save the Children and has travelled with the charity to look at the impact of AIDS on children in South Africa.
Born and raised in Liverpool with an active interest in sport, Claire supports Everton FC (for which her adoring Liverpool fans say she can be forgiven!).

CREATIVE:

Composer - Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the composer of The Likes of Us, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat®, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Variations and Tell Me On A Sunday later combined as Song and Dance, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, The Woman in White and Love Never Dies. He composed the film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass, Requiem.
He pioneered television casting for musical theatre with the Emmy award-winning BBC series How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?. He repeated his success with Any Dream Will Do which cast the title role of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and in 2008 he cast the musical Oliver! for the BBC. Last year in the BBC series Over The Rainbow he searched for a Dorothy and Toto for a new theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz, now playing in the West End.
His awards include seven Tonys, three Grammys including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Requiem, seven Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, two International Emmys, the Praemium Imperiale, the Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre and The Kennedy Center Honor. He currently owns seven London theatres including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the London Palladium.
He was knighted in 1992 and created an honorary life peer in 1997.

Lyrics - Don Black

Don and Andrew first joined forces to write the song cycle Tell Me On A Sunday, which was developed to form the basis of the stage show Song and Dance. They were reunited for Aspects of Love. Don has also added songs to Andrew's stage shows Starlight Express and Whistle Down The Wind. He also wrote lyrics for the Andrew Lloyd Webber produced musical Bombay Dreams.
In a career that has won him many glittering prizes (an Oscar for his song Born Free, five Academy Award nominations, two Tony Awards plus three Tony nominations, Five Ivor Novello Awards, a Golden Globe and many platinum, gold and silver discs) he has worked with some of the world's leading composers: Julie Styne, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein, Marvin Hamlisch, Charles Aznavour, etc.
Don has written over a hundred songs for motion pictures including The Italian Job, Dances With Wolves, Out of Africa and a quintet of James Bond theme songs - Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun, Surrender from Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. Don was awarded an OBE in the Queens Birthday Honours list.

Director - Tamara Harvey

Tamara is a graduate of the University of Bristol and trained at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, USA. Productions include Tell Me on a Sunday (UK National Tour); Dancing at Lughnasa (Birmingham Rep); Resilience (part of The Contingency Plan at the Bush Theatre); Plague Over England (Finborough Theatre / West End); tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalz! (Bush Theatre - nominated for Best Off-West End Production, Whatsonstage Awards); Hamlet (The Factory, co-director with Tim Carroll); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare's Globe); Bedroom Farce (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Bash (Trafalgar Studios); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (West End, co-director with Terry Johnson); An Hour and a Half Late (Theatre Royal Bath and UK Tour); Rock (UK Tour); Who's the Daddy? and Timing (King's Head Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (Theatre of Memory at Middle Temple Hall); Touch Wood (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Closer (Theatre Royal, Northampton); The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing (Lamb Players). In 2010 Tamara directed the plays that form an integral part of Anonymous, the new film from director Roland Emmerich. Tamara is part of the selection team for the National Student Drama Festival and is a Trustee of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.

Musical Supervisor - Jae Alexander

West End: Fiddler On The Roof (Savoy Theatre), Guys And Dolls (Picadilly Theatre), Grand Hotel (Donmar Warehouse), Disney's Beauty And The Beast (Dominion Theatre), Oliver! (London Palladium), Crazy For You (Prince Edward Theatre), The Hunting Of The Snark (Prince Edward Theatre), Cats (New London Theatre), Follies (Shaftesbury Theatre), The Mystery Of Edwin Drood (Savoy Theatre), West Side Story (Her Majesty's Theatre). Regional work includes: Me And My Girl (Crucible, Sheffield), National Tour Of Tell Me On A Sunday With Claire Sweeny, Shylock, Company, Cole, The Rocky Horror Show (Manchester Library), Grease, The Pajama Game, West Side Story and Fat Pig The Musical (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester), Gypsy (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), The Card (Watermill Theatre, Newbury) and Putting It Together (Oxford). Whilst consistently working in the West End, Jae has also recorded numerous television programmes for bbc wales and s4c, including three series of Codi'r To (Raise The Roof), two series of Peter Karrie Unmasked and Mardi Gras. For the Bbc, Jae has recorded The Magic Of The Musicals, The Gershwin Centennial Concert at the Royal Albert Hall and conducted on many Royal Variety performances with West End Musicals. Jae has also worked as musical director on an ever increasing number of outdoor "Last Night Of The Proms" spectacular concerts. these have seen him conducting across the country and working with some of the most famous orchestras in the world, including The Royal Philharmonic, The Philharmonia, The English National Symphony and The Wren Orchestra. At these events Jae has accompanied international stars such as Sarah Walker, Julian Lloyd Webber, Charlotte Church, Sarah Brightman and Sir Willard White. Jae has set up productions in Florida, Holland, Taiwan, South Africa and Singapore, including Cameron Mackintosh's production of Lionel Bart's Oliver! in Australia and the USA and Michael Grandage's Guys And Dolls also in Australia.

Designer - Janet Bird

Janet studied Theatre Design at Nottingham Trent and Scenography at Wimbledon School of Art. Recent design credits include: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare's Globe, and US and UK tour); The History Boys (West Yorkshire Playhouse / Bath Theatre Royal and UK tour); Age of Arousal (Edinburgh Lyceum); The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Dundee Rep) and Hobson's Choice (Sheffield Crucible). Other UK tours include: Enjoy (Bath Theatre Royal and West End); Single Spies (BTR & David Pugh); Alphabetical Order (originated at Hampstead, BTR & Michael Codron);The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley (with Chris Goode for Queer up North); Potted Pirates (Seabright Productions) Pete and Dud; Come Again (Seabright Productions, West End & tour); Longwave (Signal to Noise & Newbury); Markings (Attic); The Elephant Woman (Population 3). Music Theatre includes: The Rocky Horror Show (ATG - UK and Korea);The Likes of Us (Sydmonton); costumes for Mahabharta (originated at Sadler's Wells); Wallop Mrs Cox, Riding the Number 8 (Birmingham Rep). Rep Theatre includes: Comedy of Errors, Holding Fire! (Shakespeare's Globe); A Midsummer's Night's Dream (Regent's Park); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Edinburgh Lyceum); A Doll's House (Exeter); Enjoy, A Small Family Business (Watford) Arms and the Man, A Tale of two Cities (Salisbury) Hamlet, Gasping, Emma, Communication Cord (Basingstoke); Talking Heads (Bury St Edmunds); Things We do for Love (Harrogate); Descent (Birmingham Rep); I'll Be Back Before Midnight (Oldham)

Lighting Designer - Tim Mitchell

Theatre credits include over twenty productions for the RSC, including Cardenio, The City Madam, Morte D'Arthur, Twelfth Night, Love's Labour's Lost and Hamlet starring David Tennant. Credits at Chichester Festival Theatre, where Tim is an Associate, include Goodnight Mr Tom, Bingo, Yes Prime Minister (also West End), The Master Builder, The Critic / Real Inspector Hound, Oklahoma, Grapes of Wrath, Cyrano De Bergerac. Other credits include Dirty Dancing (West End/Toronto/Hamburg/Utrecht/USA tour/Berlin); Masterclass (Bath tour), The Three Musketeers (Kingston), Lend Me a Tenor (Plymouth), The Secret Garden (Edinburgh/ Toronto), The Cherry Orchard, Arthur and George (Birmingham Rep); The History Boys (WYP / Tour); Toyer, Imagine This (West End); Darker Shores, Alphabetical Order, Amongst Friends (Hampstead); Racing Demon, An Enemy of the People, The Cherry Orchard (Sheffield); A Month in the Country, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Real Thing (Salisbury); When We Are Married (WYP); Cinderella (Old Vic); Sleeping Beauty (New York/Barbican/Young Vic); Henry IV Parts I & II (Washington Shakespeare); The Play What I Wrote (Broadway/West End); Merrily We Roll Along; A Lie of the Mind (Donmar); Hamlet (Japan/Sadler's Wells); Bad Girls The Musical, Otherwise Engaged, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men (West End); The Knot of the Heart, Becky Shaw, Brighton Rock, Big White Fog, The Lightning Play, Enemies, Blood Wedding, Whistling Psyche (Almeida). Opera/Dance includes productions for Sadler's Wells, Royal Opera House, Mariinsky Russia, NBT, BRB and WNO.

Sound Designer - Gareth Owen

Gareth is the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Tony Award for Sound Design for his work on Trevor Nunns Broadway production of A Little Night Music, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. West End Musical Designs: End Of The Rainbow, Aspects Of Love, Sweet Charity, A Little Night Music, Carousel, Shout!, Fiddler On The Roof, Footloose, Paradise Found, Little Shop Of Horrors, Dickens Unplugged!, Follies, Fame, Satisfaction, Rocky Horror Show, Camelot, High Society, Forbidden Broadway, Calamity Jane, Side By Side By Sondheim, The Big Life, Tick Tick… Boom!, Next Big Thing, The Last Five Years, Blues Brothers, Romeo & Juliet and La Cage Aux Follies. UK Tour Designs: Hairspray, Corrie!, Strictly Come Dancing, High School Musical Two, Flashdance, Little Shop Of Horrors, Can't Smile Without You, The Wedding Singer, Shout!, Fame, Footloose, Rocky Horror Show, Anything Goes, Godspell, Singing In The Rain, Annie Get Your Gun, Calamity Jane, Summer Holiday, The Tempest, Jesus Christ Superstar, Children Of Eden, Slamdunk and Thoroughly Modern Millie. West End Play Designs: An Ideal Husband, The Invisible Man, Woman In Black, Prick Up Your Ears, Dealers Choice, Rsc Winter Season, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, Epitaph For George Dillon, Hamlet, Night In November, Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson, Secret Rapture, and Double Cross. International Designs: A Little Night Music (Walter Kerr, Broadway), Evita (Bellagio, Las Vegas), Fame (International Arena Tour), Excalibur (Excalibur, Las Vegas), Expert At The Card Table (MGM, Las Vegas), Footloose (South Africa), Buddy (International Arena Tour), Time Travel (Mirage, Las Vegas), Saturday Night Fever (Korea & Taiwan), Jesus Christ Superstar (Danish & Us Arena Tour), Return To The Forbidden Planet (Korea), Thoroughly Modern Millie (South Africa), Chicago (Montreux), Blues Brothers (Austria), Grease (Cyprus), Evita (Beirut) and Cats (International Arena Tour). Rock & Roll highlights: Def Leopard, Geri Haliwell, Meatloaf, Elton John, Issac Hayes, S-Club 7, Stereophonics, N-Sync, Paul Young, Hear'say and B B King. When not designing theatre, Gareth is also FOH Sound Engineer for Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones.

Choreographer - Nick Winston

Nick Winston is a choreographer, director and movement director working in Theatre, Opera and Film. 
Nick Winston is a choreographer, director and movement director working in Theatre, Opera and Film. West End: The Wizard Of Oz, directed by Jude Kelly (The Royal Festival Hall) Horrid Henry: Live And Horrid, directed by Hannah Chissick (The Trafalgar Studios). Opera: The Adventures Of Pinocchio, directed by Martin Duncan, (Opera North/Sadlers Wells/Chemnitz Opera/Minnesota Opera) RPS nomination, Best Opera. Regional Productions include: Dancing At Lughnasa, directed by Tamara Harvey, Cling To Me Like Ivy, directed by Sarah Esdaile and A Christmas Carol, directed by Nikolai Foster (Birmingham Repertory Theatre) Follies, directed by Laurie Samson (TMA nomination: Best Musical, Royal & Derngate, Northampton) Stepping Out, directed by Steven Dexter (Derby Playhouse) Alfie, directed by Laurence Till (Watford Palace) Aint Misbehavin' (also co-director) The Fantasticks; Bouncers; Putting It Together and Side-By-Side-By-Sondhiem (Harrogate Theatre). International and Touring productions include: Hormonal Housewives (Scottish Tour); A Night At The Opera (National tour); Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance (National Tour); Another Kind Of Magic (Scandinavian Arena Tour, also director); The Music Of Dirty Dancing (International Tour, also director); By Jeeves (National Tour); Forbidden City; A Twist Of Fate and The Snow Queen (Esplanade Theatre, Singapore) and Grease (Kenwood House, also director).Off West End: Tomorrow Morning (The New End Theatre, also director); The Thing About Men, directed by Anthony Drewe, Let Us Fly, directed by Moni Yakem and Dorothy Fields Forever directed by David kernan (Kings Head Theatre, London). Music Video/Film: Bob's Big Fish (Neil Morrissey/Universal), The Adventures Of Pinocchio (Opusarte). Workshops: Nick directed the workshop of Can You Keep A Secret for Perfect Pitch at the Trafalgar Studios and choreographed Loserville: The Musical for YMT. Corporate Work includes: Dubai World Cup (Dubai), Redken (Astoria, London) and Paul Mitchell (London and Paris).