WICKED STAR WILL PERFORM ‘DEFYING GRAVITY’ WITH BRIAN MAY
A host of celebrities and artists from the worlds of music, comedy and theatre come together for the annual highlight of the showbusiness calendar, the Royal Variety Performance.
Celebrating its 80th anniversary, this year's show will be returning to the iconic London Palladium on Thursday 11 December 2008 to be performed in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.
Kerry Ellis, who has just returned from Broadway where she recreated her award-winning performance as Elphaba in WICKED, will perform her sensational new version of ‘Defying Gravity’ from the hit musical. The song is featured on her new CD, ‘Wicked in Rock’, produced by, and featuring, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May.
Other participants will include Take That, Pussycat Dolls, Rihanna, Leona Lewis, Duffy, Peter Kay, Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson, John Barrowman and American music sensation Naturally 7. Pop veterans Cliff Richard and The Shadows will reform especially for the show as they prepare to celebrate their 50th anniversary; and performing a one-off duet will be multi Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Josh Groban and BBC Last Choir Standing victors Only Men Aloud.
The Royal Variety Performance is an annual charity event in aid of the Entertainment Artistes’ Benevolent Fund and will be shown on BBC One in December.
Kerry Ellis returns to play Elphaba in the London production of WICKED at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre from Monday 1 December 2008. She will not be performing on 10 or 11 December 2008.
Acknowledged as "the West End's most successful musical" (The Independent on Sunday), WICKED has already been seen by over 1.6 million people since its London premiere in September 2006. Booking was recently extended again and tickets are now on sale until Saturday 26 September 2009.
WICKED proudly supports the remarkable work of the Anti-Bullying Alliance www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk and Bliss, the special care baby charity www.bliss.org.uk
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