Latest news with #WhatsOnStageAwards
Leader Live
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts joins cast of West End musical Hadestown
The singer, 39, will play the role of Persephone in the production, which tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus as a singer-songwriter who tries to save his lover Eurydice from the underworld, which is ruled by Hades. Roberts said: 'I am beyond thrilled to be joining the cast of Hadestown in London. A post shared by Hadestown UK (@hadestownuk) 'This show is a true masterpiece, and I am honoured to be a part of such a talented and inspiring team. 'The role of Persephone has such depth and complexity, she feels light and sorrow, joy and darkness. 'Her songs are rich with emotion and an absolute joy to sing, and I'm excited to explore every facet of her character on stage. 'I am grateful for this incredible opportunity, and I can't wait to share this journey with audiences in London. Let's take a trip to the underworld together!' Roberts will star alongside Dylan Wood as Orpheus, Cedric Neal as Hermes, Chris Jarman as Hades and Desmonda Cathabel as Eurydice. Hadestown, which was first brought to London in 2018, made its return to the capital in 2024 and was nominated for best musical revival at the Olivier Awards that year. The musical, created by US singer Anais Mitchell, also won two gongs at the WhatsOnStage Awards earlier this year. A post shared by BBC Radio 2 (@bbcradio2) Roberts rose to fame as a member of girl group Girls Aloud, which was formed in 2002 on ITV show Popstars: The Rivals. The group has had four number one singles in the UK with Sound Of The Underground, I'll Stand By You, Walk This Way featuring the Sugababes, and The Promise. Last year, Girls Aloud reunited for a UK and Ireland arena tour that celebrated their legacy and paid tribute to their late bandmate Sarah Harding, who died from breast cancer aged 39 in 2021. On Tuesday, Roberts unveiled a new unreleased version of Girls Aloud song Singapore on BBC Radio 2. She also told the station 'it would be a great shame to not do it (a tour) again' and revealed that she starts rehearsals for Hadestown on Monday. 'It's very daunting. I went to see the show again on Friday. It's just wonderful', she said. Roberts will play Persephone from September 16 until January 18 2026 at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
South Wales Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- South Wales Guardian
Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts joins cast of West End musical Hadestown
The singer, 39, will play the role of Persephone in the production, which tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus as a singer-songwriter who tries to save his lover Eurydice from the underworld, which is ruled by Hades. Roberts said: 'I am beyond thrilled to be joining the cast of Hadestown in London. A post shared by Hadestown UK (@hadestownuk) 'This show is a true masterpiece, and I am honoured to be a part of such a talented and inspiring team. 'The role of Persephone has such depth and complexity, she feels light and sorrow, joy and darkness. 'Her songs are rich with emotion and an absolute joy to sing, and I'm excited to explore every facet of her character on stage. 'I am grateful for this incredible opportunity, and I can't wait to share this journey with audiences in London. Let's take a trip to the underworld together!' Roberts will star alongside Dylan Wood as Orpheus, Cedric Neal as Hermes, Chris Jarman as Hades and Desmonda Cathabel as Eurydice. Hadestown, which was first brought to London in 2018, made its return to the capital in 2024 and was nominated for best musical revival at the Olivier Awards that year. The musical, created by US singer Anais Mitchell, also won two gongs at the WhatsOnStage Awards earlier this year. A post shared by BBC Radio 2 (@bbcradio2) Roberts rose to fame as a member of girl group Girls Aloud, which was formed in 2002 on ITV show Popstars: The Rivals. The group has had four number one singles in the UK with Sound Of The Underground, I'll Stand By You, Walk This Way featuring the Sugababes, and The Promise. Last year, Girls Aloud reunited for a UK and Ireland arena tour that celebrated their legacy and paid tribute to their late bandmate Sarah Harding, who died from breast cancer aged 39 in 2021. On Tuesday, Roberts unveiled a new unreleased version of Girls Aloud song Singapore on BBC Radio 2. She also told the station 'it would be a great shame to not do it (a tour) again' and revealed that she starts rehearsals for Hadestown on Monday. 'It's very daunting. I went to see the show again on Friday. It's just wonderful', she said. Roberts will play Persephone from September 16 until January 18 2026 at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Rhyl Journal
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Rhyl Journal
Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts joins cast of West End musical Hadestown
The singer, 39, will play the role of Persephone in the production, which tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus as a singer-songwriter who tries to save his lover Eurydice from the underworld, which is ruled by Hades. Roberts said: 'I am beyond thrilled to be joining the cast of Hadestown in London. A post shared by Hadestown UK (@hadestownuk) 'This show is a true masterpiece, and I am honoured to be a part of such a talented and inspiring team. 'The role of Persephone has such depth and complexity, she feels light and sorrow, joy and darkness. 'Her songs are rich with emotion and an absolute joy to sing, and I'm excited to explore every facet of her character on stage. 'I am grateful for this incredible opportunity, and I can't wait to share this journey with audiences in London. Let's take a trip to the underworld together!' Roberts will star alongside Dylan Wood as Orpheus, Cedric Neal as Hermes, Chris Jarman as Hades and Desmonda Cathabel as Eurydice. Hadestown, which was first brought to London in 2018, made its return to the capital in 2024 and was nominated for best musical revival at the Olivier Awards that year. The musical, created by US singer Anais Mitchell, also won two gongs at the WhatsOnStage Awards earlier this year. A post shared by BBC Radio 2 (@bbcradio2) Roberts rose to fame as a member of girl group Girls Aloud, which was formed in 2002 on ITV show Popstars: The Rivals. The group has had four number one singles in the UK with Sound Of The Underground, I'll Stand By You, Walk This Way featuring the Sugababes, and The Promise. Last year, Girls Aloud reunited for a UK and Ireland arena tour that celebrated their legacy and paid tribute to their late bandmate Sarah Harding, who died from breast cancer aged 39 in 2021. On Tuesday, Roberts unveiled a new unreleased version of Girls Aloud song Singapore on BBC Radio 2. She also told the station 'it would be a great shame to not do it (a tour) again' and revealed that she starts rehearsals for Hadestown on Monday. 'It's very daunting. I went to see the show again on Friday. It's just wonderful', she said. Roberts will play Persephone from September 16 until January 18 2026 at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Glasgow Times
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Nicole Scherzinger: New music series shows Liam Payne ‘in his element'
Payne, who was best known for being one of the five former members of One Direction, died aged 31 in October 2024 when he fell from a third floor balcony at a hotel in Argentina. Prior to his death, he filmed as a guest judge on the Netflix competition series alongside Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland, host AJ McClean, and mentor Scherzinger. Speaking on The View, American actress and singer, Scherzinger, 47, said her favourite memory of the late singer was his 'heart'. Liam Payne attending the Fashion Awards 2022 held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, London (Ian West/PA) She said: 'When you watch the show, you'll see little glimpses of him after he's talking, or things where you just catch him off guard and it's when he smiles. 'He smiles with his eyes. It's like he's giving you a hug, like he's embracing you and holding you. 'Liam just had such a beautiful, beautiful heart. And I'm so happy that people get to remember him and see him in his light and in his element, giving back because he lived it.' The series has been described as a 'music experiment' where 50 singers must form a band without seeing or meeting one another. Nicole Scherzinger attending the WhatsOnStage Awards at the London Palladium (Ian West/PA) Payne was a former member of the pop group, One Direction, which was formed on The X Factor in 2010 with the help of Scherzinger who was a mentor on the series. The boy band, which consisted of Payne, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Harry Styles, became one of the biggest pop groups in the world, with five albums and four world tours, until they went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016. Payne went on to launch his solo career and released his debut solo album LP1 in December 2019. The album included the songs Polaroid with Lennon Stella and Jonas Blue; Strip That Down featuring Quavo; as well as the track For You, with Rita Ora.
Telegraph
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Freema Agyeman: ‘Why remove the uncomfortable bits from Shakespeare?'
When Freema Agyeman was just starting out, an ingénue actress on ITV's 2001-03 revival of Crossroads, she was surprised to find herself nominated for Sexiest Female at the 2003 British Soap Awards. The award may sound like a throwback to the era of Bernard Manning, but it would remain a category at ITV's annual ceremony until 2014. 'Can you imagine being nominated for something like that today?' Freeman asks, almost lost for words. 'Can you imagine? It wasn't even that long ago. So, to some extent, I guess we've come a long way.' The trophy did not go home with Agyeman that night. Instead, more than 20 years later, her mantelpiece bears something much happier: a Best Supporting Performer gong from the WhatsOnStage Awards, won in February for her turn as Juliet's fusspot nurse in Jamie Lloyd's West End revival of Romeo and Juliet. The comic charisma Agyeman brought to the role was, for many, the highlight of that production, stealing the limelight from even Tom Holland's celebrity Romeo. 'It was the first time I'd done Shakespeare,' she says, slightly shyly. Thus far, Freeman's two-decade career has been dominated by classy television turns. She spent two seasons in Doctor Who opposite David Tennant as the Doctor's companion Martha Jones (and appeared in Torchwood, too); she also starred in ITV's Law & Order: UK, Little Dorrit and the long-running American medical drama New Amsterdam. 'I didn't go to drama school,' she explains. 'So I was learning on the job, even though that's a dirty phrase to many – at least, that's how people have sometimes made me feel.' There were a few other stage roles – including Apologia in 2017 and God of Carnage in 2023 – but not many. 'To be honest, I assumed I didn't even have the skills to work in the theatre.' Yet here she is, aged 46, finally a rising Shakespearean star. At the end of last year, Agyeman won rave reviews for her wittily imperious Olivia in Twelfth Night at the RSC, and she's back in Stratford this month in a new production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing the 'badass' Beatrice, as she calls Shakespeare's verbally lethal heroine. Michael Longhurst's take on Shakespeare 's romcom is the second to open in almost as many months; Jamie Lloyd's recent revival, starring the celebrity double act of Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston, has just finished a West End run. The Longhurst production, though, is high-concept: it's set in the modern world of social media and celebrity football. Agyeman promises it'll have plenty to say about Wags, influencers, brand management, cancel culture and, in the tricky subplot involving Beatrice's cousin, Hero, who's wrongfully accused of infidelity, 'slut-shaming'. 'We're definitely going there,' Agyeman says of some of the less breezy strands in the play. 'If you remove the bits from Shakespeare that make you uncomfortable and simply present it as a beautiful package, then what are you learning?' Agyeman rarely does interviews, and I've been warned she's nervous about this one. We've met at the RSC rehearsal studios in Clapham during her lunch break; she's suitably dressed down in tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt, her long braids tied back in a casual knot. She's tight-lipped about her private life, unwilling to even say where she lives, describing herself instead as a 'nomad'. Yet discussing her craft, she's expansive, gregarious, generous. One reason why Shakespeare directors love casting her is her natural felicity with the verse, in an era when decent verse-speaking is regarded as an increasingly endangered art. Nonetheless, Agyeman was initially worried that she didn't sound 'right' for the role of a Shakespearean protagonist. 'My voice is my voice, but it's a very London voice. And I did wonder how I was going to squeeze myself into becoming a lady such as Olivia. But I remember Prasanna [Puwanarajah, who directed Twelfth Night] saying Shakespeare would be punching his fist in the air in his grave at the sound of me, because he conceived his plays to be accessible. Status comes in so many different ways – so why do we attach so much importance to how a person sounds?' Agyeman radiates confidence, though it's tempered with a dose of impostor syndrome. Born in 1979, she was brought up in Hackney to parents of mixed Iranian Kurdish and Ghanaian heritage, and was academically inclined at school before choosing acting at Middlesex University. Yet a funding crisis meant the course suddenly changed to performance arts, and Agyeman, who by her own admission isn't a natural dancer or singer, found herself unsure whether she was cut out for a career as an actress at all. On graduating, she drifted instead into jobs at a gym and a video store, before being persuaded by a former fellow student to become a member of their acting co-op, in which a group of actors work as agents for themselves. 'To put it crudely, they wanted an actor of every type on their books, and they were lacking a black girl of a certain age, so I went along. And we spent our days cold-calling the industry. I learnt a huge amount, including that most people tend to respond to a cold call by slamming down the phone. But I also got my first proper job that way, with Lola Wise in Crossroads.' She followed the ITV series with Doctor Who, in which she appeared as Martha Jones from 2007 to 2010: it's the role for which she remains best known in this country. After that came the prosecutor Alesha Phillips in Law & Order: UK, and then in 2015 she embarked on a prolonged stint in the US with roles in New Amsterdam and the cult Netflix sci-fi drama Sense8. Several non-white British actors have said that they've found it easier to get work in America than they have in Britain, particularly earlier on in their careers, but Agyeman isn't sure. 'It's a hard one, because someone was willing to take a chance on me with Lola, and I went to the US on the back of what I had achieved here. But the [industry in the US] did seem to be more available to different sorts of people. It felt like more of an open door. Whereas here...' She trails off. Does she think the door here is still closed against people from minority cultures? 'Yes. I would say so. But this is a long conversation.' As is the subject of racial abuse. She received a fair amount of it when she starred as Martha, who was the Doctor's first black companion. 'I didn't anticipate – and maybe I was naive – the racism from certain sectors of the fanbase,' she said at the Ofcom Diversity in Broadcasting event in 2021. 'I couldn't rationalise it.' Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, who played Juliet opposite Agyeman in Lloyd's recent production, similarly received online abuse and hate mail throughout the run. But Agyeman is reluctant to comment. I ask whether she thinks audience responses to casting decisions are becoming more vitriolic. There's a long pause. 'It's not something I can answer in the short amount of time we have in this interview. It's too deep.' We move onto Dreamland, Sky's sunny Margate-set comedy, developed from a Sharon Horgan short. Last year, Agyeman played the pregnant Trish in it, opposite Lily Allen's drifter sister Mel. Once again, she doubted whether she was right for the role. 'The first thing I said to the director was, 'I can't do comedy',' she says with a grin. 'But then I realised I needed to tell Trish's quite absurd life story, which by default is flipping funny.' She praises Dreamland as an example of female-led drama, with a predominately female creative team, but agrees that the persistence of such tags can't be considered a positive thing. 'If we are still using phrases such as 'female-led' then that's indicative of the status quo, which is deeply troubling,' she says. 'We still don't have a level playing field.' Agyeman may be in her mid-40s, but her career still feels under-the-radar in the UK. It's perhaps because she spent a decade away in America; or perhaps because she doesn't court celebrity. 'I was lucky. I was quite old, 26, when I got Doctor Who. And it was before social media, so I didn't come up through that route. And I've never had any desire to change things about my lifestyle in any way.' All the same, that lifestyle sounds like a good balance between the disciplined and the pleasurable. She's at pains, for instance, to make sure she always has a well-stocked bar wherever she lives. 'I don't want to be an advert for alcohol, but I do like there to always be the potential for a party,' she says. 'I'm the sort of girl who can disappear into a cave for months and just do yoga. And I'm also the sort of girl to be the last one standing.'
