Paris by Memphis team

Award-winning singer and platinum-selling artist Mica Paris will star as Sylvia in the UK and Ireland tour of Love Me Tender, the new musical inspired by and featuring the music of Elvis Presley that opens at Manchester Opera House next week.
Shaun Williamson and Mica Paris in Love Me TenderShaun Williamson and Mica Paris in Love Me Tender
Shaun Williamson and Mica Paris in Love Me Tender

The show, a feel-good musical featuring Presley’s greatest hits, is set in 1950s America. A guitar-playing, hip-swivelling stranger rides his motorbike into town. Is he The Devil in Disguise or a Hound Dog in his Blue Suede Shoes?

Packed with 25 of the King’s best loved songs the show is by the writer of award-wining West End and Broadway smash hit Memphis.

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Producer Adam Spiegel said: “I’m a huge fan of Mica Paris and as soon as I heard her audition I knew she was perfect for the role.”

Mica Paris is one of the UK’s most respected female singers with a Top 10 hit singles and albums worldwide but she has also turned her talents to the stage in West End productions of Mama I Want To Sing, The Vagina Monologues and Sweet Lorraine. TV credits include a regular host slot on BBC1’s What Not to Wear and a judge on Gok Wan’s Miss Naked Beauty.

The show runs from June 5-13. Box office: 0844 871 3018 or www.atgtickets.com/manchester

Leave ‘em laughing is an old showbiz maxim, and theatre director David Thacker aims to do just that next week.

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Concluding the Octagon Theatre’s current season of plays will be Noises Off, the outrageously funny farce that reveals the backstage shenanigans of a theatre company in the throes of ‘putting on a show’. It will also bring Thacker’s remarkable six years as artistic director of the venue to a close.

As he says: “I’ve assembled a brilliant cast, most of whom I’ve worked with during my years at the theatre. The combination of favourite faces and classic comedy makes for the perfect ending to the theatre’s season and my current role within it.”

Noises Off has been revised and rewritten by Michael Frayn more than any of his other works. Described by The Telegraph as ‘the laureate of chaos’, his most famous play remains celebrated for its absurd humour, impeccable timing, and touching presentation of the extremes and eccentricities of human nature.

Originally presented as a one-act short, Exits, in 1977, the three-act version premiered in 1982. The most recent adaptation, written for the Old Vic’s 2011 revival, will be used for this production.

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This production stars the Olivier and Manchester Theatre Awards Best Actor nominee Rob Edwards as temperamental director Lloyd Dallas, Jessica Baglow as Poppy Norton-Taylor, Colin Connor as Frederick Fellowes, and James Dutton as Garry LeJeune.

Making her Octagon debut is Charlotte Cornwell asl Dotty Otley, Barbara Drennan as Belinda Blair, Paula Jennings as Brooke Ashton, and James Quinn as Timothy Allgood. Multi award winning Kenneth Alan Taylor completes the cast as rarely-sober Selsdon Mowbray.

Noises Off runs from June 4 to July 4. Box office: 01204 520661 or www.octagonbolton.co.uk

Troublehouse theatre reprise their new production RAW at the Joshua Brooks pub in Manchester next week.

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Playwright Chris O’Connell’s contemporary drama of gang violence, family and repentance is returning to the North West for the first time since its debut tour in an all-new and energy-intensive production.

Less than a year old, Troublehouse has already achieved good reviews alongside a Greater Manchester Fringe nomination for Best Newcomer.

The cast are all Northern-based actors, since Troublehouse is committed to encouraging and creating opportunities for local talent.

It runs from June 2-6.

Box office: www.WeGotTickets.Com/RAW

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