Dan Anketell takes up role as a leading man

Mar 7 2008 Amateur stage with John Slim

DAN Anketell, aged 21 and studying music at Wolverhampton University, will have his first leading role in June - with Sutton Coldfield Musical Theatre Company's regional première of the rock 'n' roll musical, Buddy.

Dan, who lives in Lichfield, has had lesser roles in the King and I, Half a Sixpence and Hot Mikado, and he is understandably delighted to be leading the action this time around.

Meanwhile, the group is looking for singers of black and Afro-Caribbean origin who would like to take part in the show, which will be at the Lichfield Garrick from June 10-14. Jane Pryer-Smith has more details on 07931 566376.

* SUCCESS in last week's Birmingham Festival of Acting and Musical Entertainment (BFAME) means that Stage 27 will now proceed to the quarter-finals of the All-England Theatre Festival on April 26 at The Edge Arts Centre, Much Wenlock, Shropshire.

The one-act play on which the group is riding high is David Tristram's Joining the Club, with which it won through at the Dovehouse Theatre, Solilhull.

Understandably, Stage 27 is sticking with Tristram, with plans to stage his Ghostwriter - presented last month by Sutton Arts Theatre - at the Dovehouse the week before its Salopian pilgrimage, on April 18 and 19.

* W ORCESTER'S Swan Theatre Amateur Company strides bravely into Closer next week.

Patrick Marber's play, first performed at the Royal National Theatre in May, 1997, widely acclaimed ever since and made into a Mike Nichols film in 2004, will run from next Wednesday until the end of the week.

All sorts of awards followed its London and New York productions.

Sorry, but having seen it twice I still hate its foul plot, which does not spare the details of what can happen on Internet chat lines.

* MIDLAND Music Makers will be at Olton Friary, Bernard Road, Olton, on Saturday, April 2, and at St Saviour's Church, Park Road, Hagley, a week later, with a Puccini programme in support of the Marie Curie charity. The group is looking for donations for this good cause, plus support through raffle tickets, during the two concerts. Its next major production will be Carmen, planned for November. The concert programme includes scenes and arias from La Bohème, Turandot, Madam Butterfly and Tosca, as well as extracts from Puccini's only religious work, the Messa di Gloria.

* I HAVE puzzled before over shows that attach "The Musical" to their title in advertisements.

Now I think I have found the final fascination - an ad that proclaims "The Musicals of Musicals - The Musical!"

It's by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart and it offers a plot written in five different styles - those of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jerry Herman.

It offers "a side-splitting evening of clever send-ups and faithful tributes."