Oliver! - Kerry Ellis replaces Jodie Prenger
Lizzie Guilfoyle
ON MARCH 29, 2010, West End and Broadway star Kerry Ellis will replace Jodie Prenger as Nancy in Cameron Mackintosh’s record-breaking revival of Oliver!, which is currently booking at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until February 26, 2011.
Based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel Oliver Twist, Oliver! is the story of a young orphan boy who runs away from an orphanage and becomes involved with a group of boys trained to be pickpockets by an elderly mentor, the incorrigible Fagin. It includes the songs Food Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, You’ve Got To Pick-A-Pocket Or Two, As Long as He Needs Me, I’d do Anything and, of course, the title song.
Based on Sam Mendes’ 1994 staging at the London Palladium, Oliver! is directed by Rupert Goold, Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre, who won Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Best Director for his Patrick Stewart-led Macbeth.
Ellis was a member of the original London cast of the popular musical Wicked – first as understudy to Idina Menzel’s Elphaba and eventually, from January 1, 2007, as the fabled green witch in her own right. She was subsequently named Best Takeover in a Role in the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers Awards, voted for my members of the public. And, just 10 days after her final performance in London, she reprised the role on Broadway for six months.
Her other numerous credits include the West End production of We Will Rock You, in which she originated the role of Meat; Chess in Concert, in which she played Svetlana alongside Josh Groban, Adam Pascal and Marti Pellow (Royal Albert Hall); Les Misérables (as Fantine); the national tour of Miss Saigon (as Ellen); and My Fair Lady, in which she understudied Martine McCutcheon’s Eliza Dolittle (National Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane). She also took part in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace.
Most recently, Ellis performed her one woman show The Great British Songbook at the Shaw Theatre, recorded Somebody to Love which features on the Only Men Aloud album Band of Brothers and took part in the BBC Radio 2 ABBA concert Thank You For The Music in Hyde Park.
On December 20, she will join Only Men Aloud in their finale Christmas show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
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In Oliver!, Ellis will be joining Griff Rhys Jones, who takes over the role of Fagin from Omid Djalili on December 14, 2009, and Steven Hartley as Bill Sikes.