Southend star Lee Mead stars in new Oscar Wild play (From Echo)

Southend star Lee Mead stars in new Oscar Wild play

8:07am Wednesday 13th January 2010 in

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LEE Mead has started a new role in an Oscar Wilde play.

Southend-born Lee will play the title role in a Bill Kenwright production based on Wilde’s short story, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime.

It will be a new challenge for Lee, who played the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London’s West End, after winning reality TV contest Any Dream Will Do in 2007.

The 28-year-old quit Joseph a year ago to branch out into “more serious acting”, and flew to New York to study the famous Lee Strasburg method favoured by legends such as James Dean and Al Pacino.

Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime tells the tale of Arthur, a pillar of Victorian society, who seeks to commit murder before he is married after a chance encounter with a clairvoyant. Lee’s run started at Windsor’s Theatre Royal this week before going on tour with fellow star cast members including Gary Wilmot and Kate O’Mara.

Lee will be appearing until April, when he will be preparing for his next full-time role – as a dad. Former Eastwood School pupil Lee and wife Denise Van Outen, 35, from Basildon, are expecting their first child in May.