The Strictly star who will blow you away
Si mon WEBBE, the pop singer turned actor, certainly knows how to keep in shape for all the huffing and puffing he does as the big bad wolf in a new musical based on the Three Little Pigs nursery rhyme. in between scenes, during a rehearsal, i spotted him doing press-ups.
‘i have to look as if i could blow the buildings down!’ Webbe told me as he twirled a basketball in readiness for a quick game with Taofique Folarin, who plays the show’s fitness-obsessed little pig, Bar.
oh yes, writer Anthony Drewe and composer George Stiles have amusingly named the three pigs Bar, Bee . . . and Q.
Bee is played by Leanne Jones, who won awards for her knockout performance as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray (michael Ball played her mum). Daniel Buckley, who was in The Book of mormon, plays Q.
The Three Little Pigs was devised by Stiles and Drewe as a musical for children, though adults will be happy to be dragged along. While Webbe’s Big Bad Wolf is the show’s bad guy, he’s not out and out scary. This Wolf has moments of Danny Zuko from Grease. or, as Drewe wickedly put it: ‘The Wolf ’s a cross between Elvis and Diana Ross.’
Within minutes of watching the Bar Bee Q trio sing The World is Perfect For A Pig, i felt like i was five. Again.
Webbe, who used to sing and write songs for pop group Blue and was a runner-up on the last series of Strictly Come Dancing, noted: ‘Everyone remembers the Three Little Pigs from when they were kids. When my mum used to go out, she’d say: “Don’t answer the door to anybody!” And “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” was the rhyme used to make that point.’ ms Jones said she would allow her two-and-a-halfyear-old son to see it: ‘Though he’ll find it strange that it’s me on stage and wonder why mummy’s up there.’
Alison Jiear, a recent contestant on Britain’s Got Talent, who plays mother, said she was pleased that there will be affordable tickets for the show, which will be staged during the daytime at London’s Palace Theatre from August 5 until September 6. There are all manner of deals, including a £60 offer for a family of four.
‘i think it’s really important kids get to the theatre, and tickets in London are so expensive,’ she said.
interestingly, i was in contact with a reader on Twitter who was outraged that he had to pay £75 for his child to sit in row V of the Lyceum Theatre to watch The Lion King because there were no reduced rates for children.
DREWE and Stiles have written a trilogy of shows based on nursery rhymes. The others are Goldilocks And The Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Like The Three Little Pigs, they reflect an awareness of the environment and the family.
The shows are already big in China, where Goldilocks is performed in mandarin. However, the production of The Three Little Pigs has been banned in malaysia, because as a muslim country they do not eat pork. Stiles and Drewe want to bring the London company together again when the other two nursery rhyme shows are introduced to London.
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