It’s Ball & Boe — back on the road together!
Michael Ball and alfie Boe, two of the top singers in the business, have become professionally inseparable.
They’re rehearsing to star in a les Miserable concert extravaganza in the West end. and early next year, i can reveal, they’ll embark on a stadium tour around the UK. They are also planning some gigs in Japan.
Ball told me the pair are working on a third album (after chart- topping Together and Together again) that will be released in November.
‘We’ll do a little arena tour in February for the album,’ Ball, 57, told me.
he said that playing inspector Javert in the staged concert of les Miserable felt like ‘going home’.
Thirty-four years ago, cameron Mackintosh cast him as the student Marius in the original Barbican and Palace Theatre production, directed by Trevor
Nunn and John caird; an event that he described as ‘a life-changing experience’.
Meanwhile, Boe, 45, will play Jean Valjean in the concert show — a perfect role for the tenor.
The les Mis concerts start at the Gielgud Theatre on august 10. The album release, and tour with Boe, will follow.
after that, as this column revealed in May, Ball will reprise his award-winning performance as Baltimore housewife edna Turnblad in hairspray (many consider his interpretation the definitive one).
The original creative team of director Jack O’Brien and Jerry Mitchell will direct and choreograph the musical at the london coliseum from april 23 for an initial 12-week run — though it could well extend for a few more weeks.
Ball’s constantly in motion, whether it’s doing his BBc Radio 2 show, promoting his solo album coming home to You, or any of the other many commitments in his busy life.
What’s the secret of his energy, i wondered?
‘i’m heavily medicated,’ he joked, adding more seriously: ‘i’m lucky. You hit a point where i think you get a sense of who you are and what you can do. and as long as your health stays good . . . plus i feed off the energy of other people.’