Dreamboats and Petticoats - Tony Christie joins cast
Lizzie Guilfoyle
ON JULY 5, 2010, Tony Christie, the legendary singer/songwriter, will make his West End stage debut in the hit musical Dreamboats and Petticoats, which is currently booking at the Playhouse Theatre until November 27, 2010.
Christie will take on the roles of Older Bobby and Phil (Bobby’s father), who runs the St. Mungo’s Youth Club, around which the production is based.
With music from the late 50’s and early 60’s driving the story, Christie, with his musical background, will certainly feel at home in the show, which itself was inspired by the three, million-plus-selling Dreamboats and Petticoats albums.
Besides, Christie’s chart-topping single, (Is This The Way To) Amarillo, has been added specially for his run in the show.
Talking about Dreamboats and Petticoats, Christie said: “I saw the show’s original opening night in London almost a year ago and just loved the story. And of course the music is incredible – The Platters, Phil Spector, Roy Orbison, Marty Wilde – all artists I grew up listening to. As soon as I saw it I’ve been searching for a gap in my diary to join the show.”
Born in South Yorkshire in 1943, Tony Christie is one of this country’s most prolific and best-loved recording artists. He rocketed to the Number 2 spot in the UK Singles Charts in 1971 with I Did What I Did For Maria. That was followed by the timeless classic, Amarillo (Is This The Way To), written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield which, by 1972, had sold over one million copies, thereby earning it a gold disc.
In 2002, Amarillo appeared on the soundtrack for the hit TV comedy series, Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights, and in 2005, when it was re-released for Comic Relief, it went straight into the Number 1 spot in the Singles Charts where it stayed for seven weeks, becoming the biggest selling single of the year and the longest-running chart topper in nearly a decade.
His album, The Definitive Collection, also took the Number 1 spot in the album charts when it was released a week later.
Read more about Dreamboats and Petticoats
You might also be interested to know that a new album, Dreamboats and Petticoats Summer Holidays has been released. A two CD compilation of songs from the late 50’s and early 60’s, it features classic summer tracks from Cliff Richard and The Shadows, The Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, Elvis Presley and Billy Fury, alongside lost favourites such as Bobby Goldsboro’s Summer (The First Time), The Shangri-Las Remember (Walking In The Sand) and Patti Page’s Old Cape Cod which is sampled in Groove Armada’s At The River.