Advert tenor to appear in Phantom gala

1 July 2011 Last updated at 14:15 GMT Wynne Evans went to number one in the classical music charts in March Welsh tenor Wynne Evans will appear in three gala performances of The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the musical's 25th anniversary.

The star, who found fame singing in the Go Compare insurance adverts, will play the comic character Ubaldo Piangi in the performances on 1 and 2 October.

He will be joined by Sierra Boggess and Ramin Karimloo, who have both starred in Phantom sequel Love Never Dies.

More than 200 other cast members will also participate in the shows.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical opened at Her Majesty's theatre in London in 1986 and is still going strong.

"The success of the show has become the stuff of theatrical legend," said producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh.

"Andrew and I felt we needed to create a really special performance to celebrate the 25th anniversary."

Karimloo, currently playing the Phantom in Love Never Dies at the Adelphi theatre, will play the same role at the Albert Hall.

In March Evans went straight to the top of the classical music charts with his debut album A Song in My Heart.

The singer, who plays a moustachioed opera character in the Go Compare commercials, has signed a six-album deal with Warner Records.

Last month Evans filled in for tenor Alfie Boe at the Albert Hall at a memorial concert celebrating the late film composer John Barry.

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Gless to appear on London stage

27 June 2011 Last updated at 14:41 GMT Sharon Gless will star as retired teacher Jane Juska in the play Cagney and Lacey star Sharon Gless is to appear on the London stage in an adaptation of A Round-Heeled Woman.

The 68-year-old will star as a divorcee in the play about a woman's sexual liberation in later life, based on Jane Juska's work.

Gless starred in the world premiere of the play in San Francisco last year, and later had a run in Miami from December 2010 to February 2011.

The show will run at the Riverside Studios in west London from 19 October.

The run is scheduled to run until 20 November.

A Round-Heeled Woman tells the story of retired Californian English teacher Juska, who realises after 30 years of being "severely deprived" of touch that she still liked men.

After placing a personals ad in The New York Review of Books and receiving 63 replies from men aged between 32 and 84, the play follows her experiences.

Gless has trodden the boards twice before in London - in the stage version of Stephen King's Misery and in Neil Simon's Chapter Two.

But she is best remembered as detective Christine Cagney from the long-running 1980s US police drama opposite Tyne Daly.

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