In the 'House Seats'

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We are back with season five and kicking off is Craig's interview with parents, teachers and performers at Chesham Festival in Bucks, UK which was held on 24–26 February 2022.

A chance for students to compete again and for parents and teachers to get together and share experiences.

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Tim English trained at Arts Ed and graduated with honours. He was recently resident director for Aladdin at the Prince Edward Theatre London and The Lion King UK/International Tour.

His theatre credits include Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical, Harry in Mamma Mia!, Monsieur Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities and Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore.

Tim helped set up the Chris Hornby bursary fund at ArtsEd where he and Chris both trained. Chris had received a bursary to train at ArtsEd, a small grant that had a big impact on his life and all those he went on to meet. The Chris Hornby Fund has been set up as a lasting legacy that will help talented students at ArtsEd facing financial hardship. Attendees of the memorial showed exceptional support for the fund, resulting in an incredible £3,261 being donated on the day and a further £3,700 online.

If you would like to support the Chris Hornby Fund please visit the justgiving page.

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This week we give a big shout out to all the pantos that are going ahead this year around the UK. 

After a year without we thought a much needed reminder to support your local pantomimes would be the right thing to do. They are the life blood for keeping theatres and venues alive and without them theatre land would be a much sadder and poorer place. 

So get your tickets booked for you and your family and friends and get ready to shout, boo,  hiss, cheer, laugh and clap as you spend a fun packed evening or matinee in the company of dames, princes, barons, wicked step mothers, evil queens, ugly sisters, princesses and pantomime horses.

Have fun!

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A loveable live singing drag queen from the Midlands who brings glamour, comedy and a contagious energy to her performances. Singing camp classics, musical parodies and all the songs you forgot you loved, It’s Ava Cardo!

After graduating drama school training at East 15 Acting School, Ava immediately started her drag career performing to 100s of holiday makers a week across the Canary Islands as part of the Musical Hall Tavern show throughout 2016. Since moving back to the UK, Ava has made her mark on the drag scene starting out and excelling in competitions such as Drag Idol and has now been performing her very own show in venues across London and the UK. Now residing in LGBTQ hotspot of Brighton, the live singing sensation continues her drag career. Aside from cabaret, in 2021 Ava performed her own comedy Fringe Theatre show which received a five star review and the Pebble Trust’s international touring award. Ava is now set to make her Panto Debut as Snow White on the West-Ends number one Adult Pantomime!

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Kerry Jane Ellis is an English actress and singer who is best known for her work in musical theatre and subsequent crossover into music. Born and raised in Suffolk, Ellis began performing at an early age before training at Laine Theatre Arts from the age of 16.

Ellis made her first professional stage appearance in 1998 and went on to make her West End debut in the 2001 revival of My Fair Lady as an understudy for the role of Eliza Doolittle. In 2002, she landed the role of Meat in the original London cast of We Will Rock You and has subsequently played lead roles in musicals Les Misérables, Wicked (in the West End and on Broadway), Oliver! and Cats as well as appearing in national tours and concert productions of musicals like Miss Saigon, Chess, The War of the Worlds and RENT. Ellis, who has received several awards and nominations for her performances, has become recognised as the First Lady of West End musicals.[1][2] She has also worked sporadically in film and television.

After meeting Queen guitarist Brian May in 2002, Ellis expanded her repertoire as a solo artist. She has released four studio albums Anthems (2010), which reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart, the self-titled Kerry Ellis (2014), Golden Days (2017) and Feels Like Home (2020) as well as an extended play Wicked in Rock (2008) and a live album Acoustic by Candlelight (2013). Ellis also appears as a featured artist on several other albums. Ellis has performed in concerts across the world in addition to headlining solo concert tours like Anthems: The Tour and The Born Free Tour.

In addition to her musical work, Ellis involves herself in charity work for the Born Free Foundation with May and is the patron of several arts organisations. In 2019, Ellis received an honorary fellowship from the University of Suffolk.

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Andrée’s best known from TV series Only Fools & Horses, Hollyoaks, Holby City, Poirot & Doctor Who. She has starred in many West End theatre shows including Hair & Kiss Me Kate. Andrée has worked extensively with writer/director Steven Berkoff over the past few years on new plays The Actor’s Lament and 6 Characters in Search Of A Director.

For an in-depth account of all of Andrée’s work from film & TV roles, to viewing clips, listening to her voiceover work and more, visit her website at andreebernard.com.

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This weeks podcast comes 'live' from the Maidenhead Dance Festival in the UK. 

We get to hear teachers, parents and students views on performing and training as well as coping during lockdown. Also, the aspirations of the future performers.

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Pavel "Pasha" Kovalev, born 19 January 1980 is a Russian professional Latin and ballroom dancer.

He started dancing at the age of eight and in 2001  moved to the United States with his professional dance partner Anya Garnis. In 2007, the couple competed on the third season of the American version of So You Think You Can Dance and they have since participated in the eight subsequent seasons as either choreographers or 'All-Star' partners to the contestants.

In 2011, Kovalev moved to the United Kingdom to take part in the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing as a professional dancer.  After finishing runner-up on both the ninth and tenth series with celebrity partners Chelsee Healey and Kimberley Walsh, he went on to win series twelve with his partner Caroline Flack. Despite facing backlash over her past dance experience and landing in the bottom two three times, he and his celebrity partner, Ashley Roberts, later became runners-up on the sixteenth series of the show. They currently hold the record of the highest average for any celebrity on the show – with an average of 36.9 – and another record for scoring the most perfect scores – with a total of five. Kovalev announced that 2018 was his final series on the show as he had decided to "find a new challenge" after "eight incredible years".

Kovalev started dating his former Strictly partner Rachel Riley in 2013, and the couple now live together in London. In May 2019, Riley and Kovalev announced via social media that they were expecting their first child in December. The couple subsequently married in Las Vegas on 28 June 2019. Their daughter, Maven Aria Riley Kovalev, was born on 15 December 2019. The couple are now expecting their second child.

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Emma Kate is a British performer. Actress, singer and dancer she performs mainly on stage in theater and opera but also in cinema.

Recently Emma Kate was spotted on stage at The Monte Carlo Opera House in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. At the Grand Palais and at the Théâtre du Châtelet for her portrayal of Lina Lamont in Singing In The Rain, or in the role of Anytime Annie in 42nd Street. She also played the role of La Fée Des Lilas in French in Peau d'âne at the Théâtre Marigny, re-orchestrated by Michel Legrand produced by Jean-Luc Choplin (Cast Album / Sony France) and Jenny Diver in The Beggars Opera by Robert Carsen & William Christie, Les Arts Florrisant, Theater Bouffes Du Nord and OPUS ARTE / FRA Prod Cinema.

Emma Kate Nelson began her career at a young age in the West End, London in Aspects of Love at the Prince of Wales Theater, she will be found later on many stages in London: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (The World's Greatest Show, The Enchanted Pig), Aldwych Theater (Stephen Ward), Southwark Playhouse (Victor Victoria), Young Vic Theater (Street Scene), Union Theater (The Pajama Game), Jermyn Street Theater (Jean de Florette), Open Air Theater in Regent's Park (The Music Man, The Boyfriend, Lady Be Good, (A Midsummer Night's Dream), The Gatehouse Theater (Call Me Madam), Chichester Theater (42nd Street), at the Swan Theater in High Wycombe (Me and My Girl) but also on tour with White Christmas and That's Entertainment.

Outside the UK, she performed the role of Princess Adelaide (The Enchanted Pig) at the New Victory Theater in New York, Soloist at The Eldorado Showroom in Reno, Nevada, the lead role in the Australian tour of Putting on the Ritz, as well as several roles in Starlight Express in Germany. On tour again with Street Scene (Toulon Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, ​​Theater an der Wien Vienne, Oper Koln and Opera De Monte Carlo).

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Javier De Frutos, Spanish Director, Choreographer and designer (born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1963) was named by the Evening Standard as one of 2016 most influential people in the UK. He is one of only three artists in the history of the Olivier Awards to have received nominations in all of the dance categories. His awards include the Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreography for Cabaret, The Evening Standard Award for The Most Incredible Thing in collaboration with Pet Shop Boys, Critics’ Circle Awards for Milagros with Royal New Zealand Ballet and Elsa Canasta with Rambert and Scottish Ballet, The South Bank Show Award for Grass and The Time Out Award for Sour Milk with Candoco Dance Company. Further credits include the National Theatre production of London Road - winner of the Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and for which he received an Olivier nomination for the stage version and The 2017 Chita Rivera Award for best choreography in a feature film for the screen adaptation. His work Fiction for BalletBoyz was named Best of Dance by The Arts Desk and Top 10 by the Guardian in 2016.   From Here to Eternity, the Tim Rice musical which he premiered on the West End, was nominated for the WhatsOnStage award for Best Choreography and The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud for Royal New Zealand Ballet was nominated for both an Olivier Award and a National Dance Award.

He has received further recognition in the field of music video with a nomination for best choreography in the UK music Video awards for his collaboration with Jake Nava in Delilah’s Inside My Love and also received the Prix de Auteur in the 1996 Concours de Seine-Saint Denis in Paris.

His work has been the subject of several documentaries. The South Bank Show in 1998 dedicated an hour king feature. Only a handful of Dance Artists have received that Honour.

In 2011 the BBC broadcasted in prime time The Most Incredible Thing in collaboration with Pet Shop Boys, and the US premiere took place in Charlotte North Carolina in March 2018.

He was invited by the McColl Center for Arts and Innovation to be the same years’s Artist in Residence. Their first Choreographer and Director in their History.

in 2000 De Frutos became one of the first Fellowship recipients The Arts Council of England, through which he studied extensively the works of Tennessee Williams for more than two years. He also represented Britain at the internationally prestigious Venice Biennale in 2006.