Get your frocks on

Known for its sumptuous costumes and elaborate settings, much-loved musical The King and I comes to Llandudno this month, bringing with it a familiar face from our TV screens

The King and I is one of the great classics from the golden age of Broadway musicals, with one of the finest scores ever written, including favourites ‘Shall We Dance?’ and ‘Getting to Know You’. It opens on the deck of a ship as it snakes upriver at dusk, heading for a glimmering royal palace in 19th-century Siam. No production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein show has managed to lay on a feast for the eyes quite like the one now touring the UK, following record-breaking runs at the London Palladium and on Broadway.

Staged by multi Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher, the show arrives at Venue Cymru in Llandudno on 7th March and brings with it a much-loved star of television. Helen George, star of Call the Midwife, returns to the stage after many years to play Anna Leonowens, a widow in Victorian England who travels to Bangkok to teach English to the King’s many children.

“I’d been wanting to do a musical for a while,” says Helen, “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 our screens, Helen’s first job after drama college was in the ensemble of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White. She has since sung at the BBC’s VE Day 75th anniversary commemoration and on the cast album of Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella. She took the dancefloor by storm on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, so she won’t have any trouble with ‘Shall We Dance?’. In the show’s climactic number, Anna and the King dance a sweeping polka that is a meeting of minds, hearts, and mostly feet. “When we do this incredible dance I wear this incredible dress,” laughs Helen. “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.”

Sweeping statement

“I went to see the show when I was seven or eight, growing up in Birmingham,” says the actress. “I haven’t gone back and watched the film because I need to find Anna myself. In fact, 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.”

In The King and I, we see two worlds collide not just geographically and culturally but also of course in terms of gender and wealth. The King is the magnificent one and she the servant. But through compromise on both sides comes genuine respect and love, reminding us that human nature is timeless.

With a stunning score, given the full velvet touch by a sublime orchestra, exquisite costumes, a stellar cast that uncovers the play’s rich layers through superb storytelling, and the most charming and endearing group of young performers, you have the ultimate classical musical theatre show. It’s rare to feel such warmth and delight about a production but The King and I delivers that in abundance – and so much more besides.

The King and I is at Venue Cymru, Llandudno on 7th March and the tour continues into the summer. For ticket information and availability see www.kingandimusical.co.uk