One of musical theatre’s best-known stars, Kerry Ellis has spent the past 25 years appearing in a number of iconic shows both in the West End and on Broadway. She’s also toured extensively with Queen’s Brian May and dazzled fans around the world with her solo tours. Kerry recently shared her joy at once again hitting the road this autumn...

It’s been quite a journey for the kid who grew up wanting to be a pop star. And this autumn, Kerry Ellis will reflect on how far she’s come in her new solo show, Queen Of The West End, which stops off at four Midlands venues over the next couple of months. 

“It all started for me when I was a young girl,” she recalls. “I must’ve been three or four when I went to the Judith Thomas Dance School. They’d hold classes in a little church hall, and I’d go there with other children to learn my first steps. 

“There wasn’t a grand plan back in those days. To be honest, there’s never been a grand plan, and there still isn’t now. I was probably sent there because my parents wanted to give me something positive to do. Well, either that or they wanted a bit of childcare and someone else to wear me out! Whatever their motivation, I loved dance from the moment I stepped through the door at Judith Thomas. I just took a shine to it, and that passion never left me. I loved it then and I still do now.”

Dancing grabbed Kerry and made her feel alive. She wanted to be a pop star as well as a star of musical theatre. “I didn’t really have any singing lessons. I guess I had a couple when I was about 12, when my dad took me to a teacher called Olive, but that was all. Olive was actually a choir singer. She kind of tapped into this classical singing thing that I didn’t even know existed. It was completely new for me. I’d always been a big ‘belty’ singer before I went to see her, screaming in my bedroom to Queen, Meatloaf or Bonnie Tyler. But Olive opened up a whole new soprano thing.”

Kerry had a double cassette of Les Miserables, which was hugely influential. She knew the show from start to finish and would sing along with the cassette. It was the same with Miss Saigon. She grew to love the nation’s biggest shows.

“My path wasn’t calculated, not in the slightest. I was listening to music, loving it and rehearsing it. Everything stemmed from there.

“I loved singing, I loved dancing, and I loved the world of entertainment. I’d do anything I could. I was rehearsing myself without realising it. I was stretching my voice and seeing what I was capable of, without knowing. I think dance gave me discipline, and being part of that dance school, when I was younger, was really important. I’d have to turn up three or four days a week, I’d have to be physical, I’d have to be on that ballet bar at quarter past three. There was a discipline with dance that stood me in brilliant stead later in my career.”

Kerry was a dreamer as a kid, and her parents were incredibly supportive. They bought into her goal of performing on Broadway and in the West End. 

At 19, she got a job singing on a nine-month cruise around the Caribbean. When she returned, she did a quick tour of Magic Of The Musicals, with Marti Webb and Dave Willetts, and then went into My Fair Lady. She was the understudy for Eliza Doolittle, who was played by Martine McCutcheon. When Martine became unwell, Kerry stepped up. “Because Martine was such a superstar, there was loads of media interest. When she was off, it was a big story, big news. We didn’t have social media then, but it was in all the newspapers. 

“I found myself in the papers for the first time too, because I was the person taking on that role while Martine was off. It was quite an awakening to the West End. It really was a big deal. I was still young enough not to be phased by it, and in a sense there was no pressure on me because nobody knew who I was. I just needed to do the job. I just needed to deliver.

“I had no dress run, no costume run, nothing. It was ‘in at the deep end’. It was such an adrenaline rush. Afterwards I got to go on quite a few times because Martine became unwell again and eventually had to leave the show. Alex Jay and I split the role, and for a little while we got to be Eliza over a period of time.”

The show changed Kerry’s life forever. The offers flooded in.

“A lot happened in My Fair Lady. There was a  performance when I went on for one of the ensemble dance tracks and sang a few lines. What I didn’t know was that Brian May was in the audience with the casting director for We Will Rock You. Brian saw something in me, I don’t know what, and I don’t know how or why he picked me out.

“They found out I was the understudy for the lead, so they came back when I was playing Eliza. Again, that was all totally unbeknownst to me. They enjoyed my performance and asked me to audition for We Will Rock You, as Meat. 

“I didn’t find out about any of that until after I’d got the job - all I knew was that I’d got an audition for We Will Rock You. There were a lot of auditions - I think I had seven in all. Brian and I joke about that to this day. He always says he knew I was going to be in the show, he knew I was the one, so I ask him why he made me go through seven auditions if he was so sure about me!”

We Will Rock You was a whirlwind of madness and craziness because it was new for Brian and Roger Taylor. There was a frenzy of huge celebrities and big, iconic people surrounding the show. The whole thing was a one-off. Nothing like that had really happened before.

“During rehearsals, Brian and Roger would be around a lot. They’d be in the rehearsal room and would watch everything, so we got to know them very well. Robert De Niro had some money in the show, so he came over to watch one of the run-throughs too. Then a stream of celebrities came to watch the show as soon as it opened. We met so many people, from Emma Thompson to Beyonce, from Britney Spears to P!nk. My hero, Liza Minnelli, came along too. 

Kerry then moved into Miss Saigon. “Miss Saigon was a show that I’d loved growing up. The role of Ellen wasn’t massive, but it was a well-respected, leading female role. It was a big tick off the list. You want to be part of these big, iconic shows. That’s what drove me early on, and Miss Saigon was another bucket-list production. I’d listened to it on a double cassette as a teenager and seen it at Drury Lane before my career began. So when it went full circle and I got to start in a show that I’d seen as a youngster, the whole experience was pretty magical.”

She also starred in Les Misérables - the show she’d gone to see as an impressionable 13-year-old. 
“Fast forward to 2005 and I was in that show, on that stage. I’d come full circle. I was doing all of those iconic songs that I’d always wanted to sing.

“There’s something special about the big hits, like Memory, in Cats, or I Dreamed A Dream, in Les Mis. People are waiting for you to sing them. They literally buy their ticket just for that. So to have that moment with those iconic songs is magical. I do look back very fondly and gratefully at that. 
Wicked was another game-changer. It took Kerry to Broadway and helped her fulfil another big ambition in life. 

“Broadway was everything I thought it would be - good and bad. When I went there, I’d been doing the show in London for nine years, and it was a really tough show. Anyone who’s been in Wicked will tell you how difficult it is. Vocally speaking, it’s unlike anything I’d ever sung before. It’s so much more difficult.

I’d never been challenged by anything as much as I was by Wicked. I went through good moments, tough moments where I blew my voice out, and moments where I had to re-train myself to sing the show because it was so difficult. 

“The Broadway gig came up and I literally finished the show in London on the Saturday, flew on the Sunday, then was in rehearsals on the Monday. Two days later, I was opening the show on Broadway and I was absolutely knackered. I was there for six months and it was wonderful; it was absolutely a dream come true.”

There’s been a lot, lot more, of course, and Kerry will unpack the highlights of her career in Queen Of The West End. “There’s a lot more to come. I can’t wait for my solo tour this autumn, and there’s another new record just around the corner, as well as lots more concerts on the horizon.

“So what’s coming in the future? I don’t know. The future is not yet written, is it? But I know one thing: I’m having the time of my life, and I can’t wait for whatever comes my way.”

Kerry Ellis presents Queen Of The West End at: Stratford Playhouse, Stratford-upon-Avon, Saturday 12 October; Dudley Town Hall, Wednesday 16 October; Lichfield Garrick, Wednesday 30 October; and Malvern Theatres, Saturday 23 November