Alexandra Burke will join the West End cast of CHICAGO at the Phoenix Theatre, playing the role of Roxie Hart from Monday 13 August until Saturday 14 October. She will join Martin Kemp as Billy Flynn, Mazz Murray as Mama Morton, Josefina Gabrielle as Velma Kelly and Paul Rider as Amos Hart. Martin Kemp will be staying in the London production of CHICAGO until 1 September.
Alexandra Burke rose to fame in 2008 after winning the 5th series of ITV’s The X Factor. Her winner’s single, Hallelujah, reached number one in the UK Christmas Chart and went on to be crowned the top-selling single of 2008, selling over 1 million copies in the UK alone. Her theatre roles include Rachel Marron in The Bodyguard (London & UK tour), Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act (UK Tour), and, most recently, Svetlana Sergievsky in the five-week revival of Chess at the London Coliseum.
The multi award-winning Kander & Ebb musical CHICAGO, winner of six Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards and a Grammy, returned to London’s West End on Monday 26 March 2018. CHICAGO originally ran in London for 15 years, making it the West End’s longest running revival. It opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 18 November 1997 to rave reviews and immediately became a sell-out hit. CHICAGO won the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Musical Production’ as well as the 1998 Critics Circle Drama Award for ‘Best Musical’. CHICAGO transferred from the Adelphi Theatre to the Cambridge Theatre in April 2006, where it ran for five years until 27 August 2011. The show then opened at the Garrick Theatre on 7 November 2011, where it ran until 1 September 2012.
Since it opened in New York in 1996, CHICAGO has played in 36 countries worldwide, and been performed in English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, French, Danish, Japanese and Korean. It has played over 32,500 performances worldwide, with an estimated 31 million people around the world having seen CHICAGO. CHICAGO continues to play on Broadway, where it celebrated its 21st birthday last year, and around the world in multiple languages.
It is booking at the Phoenix Theatre until Saturday 5 January 2019.