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My guest today is actress Ruthie Henshall. Ruthie’s multi-award winning career has seen her star in the most popular musicals of the past thirty years including Cats, Miss Saigon, Crazy For You, She Loves Me, Oliver!, A Chorus Line, Les Misérables, Billy Elliot and Chicago. She has also enjoyed tremendous success in plays, in concert and on television. Ruthie recently returned to Chicago play Mama Morton in the West End, making her the only British actress to have played all three leading female roles in the show. Ruthie’s appearance in Crazy For You at the Prince Edward Theatre established her as one of the most popular stars in the West End. She was nominated for an Olivier Award for her performance and took the show to Canada where she played opposite Mickey Rooney. In 1994, Ruthie starred in She Loves Me at the Savoy Theatre, winning her first Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

I had the privilege of working alongside Ruthie this year in Stephen Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s Passion which ran for a limited season at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester.

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Originally from Burry Port in South Wales, John has released 6 studio albums, worked extensively in theatre and has appeared on television, radio and in concert all over the world.

At the age of 19, John left Wales to study acting at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Since then he has worked as an actor and singer in theatres all over the country in a great number of different shows. However, he is probably best known for his acclaimed record-breaking performances in Boublil and Schonberg’s Les Miserables and in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. He remains the youngest actor in history to have played Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (a role he also played twice on Broadway), was voted the “Best Ever Valjean” and “Best Ever Performer in Les Miserables" by fans of the show worldwide and can be heard as Valjean on the Les Miserables Live! album. His re-interpretation of the character on the re-imagined 25th anniversary production earned him a Manchester Evening News Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2010. He has played The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera nearly 2000 times (more than any actor in the show’s West End history) and was a special guest in the finales for both the Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera 25th anniversary concert events – both seen by a global audience of millions. He has also appeared many times on television and radio in the UK both as an actor and as himself, has recorded voiceovers and audiobooks, presented radio shows and live events, has directed and produced live events and has performed solo concerts all over the world in venues such as The Royal Albert Hall, London, Carnegie Hall, New York and the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow. He has released 6 solo albums and two compilation albums -which he also produced - through record labels Sain Music, Sony Music Japan and his own label JOJ Music: Hallelujah e.p (2006), John Owen-Jones (2009), Unmasked (2011), Rise (2015), Music of the Night (Japan-only compilation 2016), Bring Him Home (compilation 2017), Spotlight (2019) featuring The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and most recently The Christmas Album (2021). 2022 will see him launch a theatre based podcast called The Last Show On Earth.

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Charlotte is a stage director and dramaturg specialising in political theatre and new writing, with an emphasis on the development of British musicals.

She is currently developing a contemporary political musical with writers Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth, a state of the nation drama by Owen McCafferty and a one woman musical satire with Richard Hough and Ben Morales Frost for the Barn Theatre, Cirencester.

After graduating with first-class honours for Drama at the University of Manchester and training at Augusto Boal’s Centre of the Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, Charlotte’s career started at the Donmar Warehouse, where she was the Resident Assistant Director between 2004-2005. For the Donmar, she directed Kiss of the Spider Woman and Lower Ninth (for Donmar @ Trafalgar Studios). Charlotte was also associate director on Frost/Nixon to Michael Grandage and Piaf to Jamie Lloyd for both the Donmar West End transfers at the Gielgud and Vaudeville respectively.

Charlotte has been recognised for numerous awards, including a 2006 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre as associate director to Nicolas Kent for Bloody Sunday – Scenes from the Savile Inquiry. She received a nomination for a 2006 Whatsonstage Theatregoers Choice Award for Gladiator Games; the same play was part of a season at Stratford East, which was nominated for the 2007 Olivier Award for outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Waiting for Lefty was a finalist for 2003 James Menzies Kitchin Award for Young Directors (BAC).

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