THE Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff is to host Call the Midwife star Helen George who has finally found the musical theatre production she couldn’t say “no” to - despite having to wear a 10lb dress in it.
Helen is set to star in The King And I, showing at the Cliffs from April 18 to April 22.
Starring as Anna Leonowens, a widow from Victorian England who has travelled to Bangkok to teach English to the King of Siam’s many children.
“I’d been wanting to do a musical for a while,” she says, “and I was waiting for the right one to come along and just couldn’t say no. It’s just such a classical musical theatre part.”
Though better known for bringing babies into the world on TV, her first job after drama college was in the ensemble of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s the Woman in White in 2004.
She has since sung at the BBC’s VE Day 75th anniversary commemoration and on the cast album of Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.
As for dancing, Helen is a whizz having taken the dancefloor by storm on Strictly in 2015.
In The King And I, the climactic song Shall We Dance? sees Anna and the King dance a sweeping polka that is an ecstatic meeting of minds, hearts and - most of all - feet.
“When we do this incredible dance I wear this incredible dress,” she says.
“I’m as big as a house. In the rehearsal room everybody has had to get out of the way. I lift up the skirt and drag scripts and tea cups with me along the way. It weighs ten pounds and it’s uncomfortable, but this was the life of a Victorian woman.”
Helen has not revisited the 1956 film, which won five Oscars, as she wants to find the character herself.
“I went to see the show when I was seven or eight when I was growing up in Birmingham,” she says.
“I haven’t gone back and watched the film because I need to find Anna myself, and I hadn’t realised how many songs she sings. I knew them but I hadn’t quite figured they were all together in this show.”
The King and I will show at the Cliffs Pavilion from Tuesday, April 18, to Saturday, April 22. Visit www.
southendtheatres.org.uk for details
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