The stage adaptation of Iain Softley’s 1994 film about The Beatles’ early years together in Germany will open at The Duke of York’s Theatre on 10 October, 2011.

Nick Blood is to play Stuart Sutcliffe, Andrew Knott will play John Lennon, reprising his Glasgow Citizens Theatre production role and Daniel Healy will play Paul McCartney. The trio will be joined on stage by Ruta Gedmintas as Astrid Kirchherr, William Payne as George Harrison, Oliver Bennett as Pete Best, Adam Sopp as Ringo/Tony Sheridan, Dominic Rouse as Klaus Voorman, James Wallae as Sir George Martin and Ben Fox as Arthur Ballard/Bert Kaempfert.

Backbeat is set during the so-called ‘Hamburg years’ � the time in the early 60s when the band were still trying to hit the big time � and features live performances of classic songs including Twist & Shout, Rock & Roll Music, Long Tall Sally and Please Mr Postman.

Backbeat ticket and hotel packages are available from Show-and-Stay.co.uk from �133 per person including an overnight hotel stay in one of our handpicked city hotels.

Peter Andre, Stacey Solomon, the Sugababes and Mel C of Spice Girls fame will appear at selected West End theatres as part of BBC Children In Need’s POP Goes the Musical 2011 campaign.

The first celeb to appear will be X Factor’s Stacey Solomon, who will perform iconic ballad For Good after Wicked‘s 10 September matine� show at the Apollo Victoria. Solomon will be followed by ex-Spice Mel C, who will perform We Will Rock You‘s title track and We Are The Champions at the show’s 13 September show at the Dominion Theatre.

Peter Andre will take to the Piccadilly Theatre‘s stage after Ghost The Musical‘s 14 September performance to sing Unchained Melody. Finally, the Sugababes will perform after Mamma Mia‘s 15 September show at The Prince of Wales Theatre. The girl-group will sing Dancing Queen.

Children In Need raises money for disadvantaged kids in the UK. In 2010 they raised a staggering �40 million.

The show, currently running at the Apollo Theatre, will finish its current run on 17 September and will re-open at the Gielgud on 20 September.

The transfer is great news for those who were concerned about the Gielgud remaining dark between the early closure of Lend Me A Tenor and the opening of the theatre’s next scheduled show, The Ladykillers.

Ticket and hotel packages to see Yes, Prime Minister at the Apollo are available from Show-and-Stay.co.uk from �98.50.

Fancy seeing Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre one more time before it closes? You’re in luck.

Show-and-Stay.co.uk still have ticket and hotel packages available to see this tale of murder, fame and sexy showgirls. The best part is that, even though it’s closing very soon, Chicago at the Cambridge theatre is available as part of our �10 hotel offer.

You can book top tickets and an overnight stay in one of our handpicked city hotels from �76pp. Be quick, the show closes on 27 August and our packages are selling fast!

If you miss Chicago, don’t be too sad; it’ll be replaced by the truly incredible Matilda The Musical.

Michael Crawford and Rachel Tucker have extended their West End runs into 2012.

Crawford will now continue to play the title role in The Wizard of Oz until 2 February, 2012. He has starred in the musical since it opened at The London Palladium on 1 March, 2011.

Rachel Tucker will also continue delighting audiences into the new year; she will continue starring as Elphaba in the Apollo Victoria’s smash hit musical, Wicked, until an as-of-yet-unconfirmed date in 2012. Louise Dearman, Mark Evans, Clive Carter, Julian Forsyth, Zoe Rainy and Ben Stott will all leave the cast on 10 December, 2011.

Ticket and hotel packages to see Wicked and The Wizard of Oz are available from Show-and-Stay.co.uk

The Beatles

The stage adaptation of Backbeat is coming to the West End.

The production, based on the 1994 biopic film about The Beatles’ early days in Germany, will open at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre later this year.

The play was written by the film’s director and premiered at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre in early 2012. The story of the birth of The Beatles’ game-changing sound is set against a background of live performances of seminal 1960s songs including Twist & Shout and Long Tall Sally.

Backbeat is currently scheduled to run from 10 October, 2011� 24 March, 2012 with previews on as-of-yet-unconfirmed dates in September.

Now…who to pick?

Karina Kantas sings Wouldn’t It Be Lovely from My Fair Lady

Jessica Gray sings Pulled from The Addams Family Musical

Simon Paterson sings It’s Hard to Speak My Heart from Parade

Robert Fry sings Your Song from Moulin Rouge!

Jacqui Onions sings Don’t Wanna Be Here from Ordinary Days

Georgina Price sings Under Your Spell from Buffy: Once More With Feeling

Annabelle Wilson sings The Life of the Party from The Wild Party

Kate Holderness sings Colours of the Wind from Pocahontas

Kirstie Louise sings the title track from Fame

Josie Parkin sings Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz

Melanie Evans sings Once Upon a Dream from Jekyll & Hyde

Dean Bayliss sings If I Didn’t Believe in You from The Last 5 Years

Nicole Faraday sings I Don’t Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar

Jim McGovern sings Javert’s Suicide from Les Miserables

Sophie Gough sings I Don’t Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar

Jessica Cooke sings I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables

Laura Candlin sings I’m Not That Girl from Wicked

Patricia Gillespie sings The Perfect Year from Sunset Boulevard

James Moore sings Out Here On My Own from Fame

If you fancy submitting an entry, all you have to do is to pick a song, follow this link and print out the entrant sheet and fill in it with your name, the title of the song you’re performing, and the name of the musical that the song appeared in. After that, it’s as simple as recording your video (making sure that you hold your entry sheet up at the start), uploading it to Megaupload.com, emailing us the link and waiting to see if we select you for the top five. The top three videos will then be put to the public vote to decide who wins the �300 first prize, the �100 second prize and the �50 third prize.

All videos will be uploaded to our Facebook account, so be sure to get all your friends and families to support you with plenty of views, likes and comments. All entries will need to be received by Monday September 12, 2011.

Before you upload your video, make sure that you’ve ticked everything off this handy little checklist.

- Are you aged 18 or over?
- Have you picked a song which has appeared in a musical? (Glee does not count.)
- Have you printed out and filled in the entrant sheet?
- Have you clearly displayed your entrant sheet at the beginning of your video?
- Is your song recorded in AVI, MPG, WMV, RM, HDMOV, FLV, MOD or MP4 format?
- Have you read the terms and conditions?

COMPETITION CLOSED

Christmas With The Rat Pack Live From Las Vegas is returning to London’s West End this winter.

The tribute show will open at Wyndham’s Theatre on 20 December for a limited run currently scheduled to end on 7 January, 2012. The non-festive incarnation of the show, simply titled The Rat Pack Live, will then run at the Wyndham’s from 7 January to 21 January, 2012.

Featuring a host of Christmassy hits such as: Baby, It’s Cold Outside, White Christmas and Winter Wonderland, Christmas With The Rat Pack is a toe-tapping singalong celebration of the festive season. The show invites the audience to step back to the glory days of Frank Sinatra, Sammy David Jr and Dean Martin, the legendary kings of swing as they perform a blend of Christmas songs and their greatest hits.

The show opened on 15 June 2011 and will now close on 6 August 2011; a run of just two months.

Lend Me A Tenor was originally scheduled to run until 19 November 2011 but in a statement released yesterday the show’s producers said: “We wish to thank the extremely dedicated cast of Lend Me a Tenor The Musical, author Peter Sham and composer Brad Carroll and everyone who has taken part in the project. Despite mostly wonderful notices from the press, great feedback from our audiences and nightly standing ovations, this has not translated into growing sales and we feel it is in everyone’s best interests to close the production on August 6th.”

Set in Ohio in 1934, Lend Me A Tenor is a musical comedy which sees an Opera manager scheming to try and keep his struggling company afloat.

The stage adaptation of 1955 black comedy film The Ladykillers is currently the next show scheduled at the Gielgud, opening in November this year.

Karen Gillan (image by MangakaMaiden@Flickr)

Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan is to make her professional theatre debut this October.

The scottish actress will play Shirley in John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse. She will be joined on stage by Douglas Hodge, Ester Hall, Amy Morgan, Daniel Ryan and Al Weaver.

Written in 1964, Inadmissible Evidence is a monologue-heavy play which charts the life of a malcontented solicitor named William.

The Donmar’s production of Inadmissible Evidence opens on 13 October and will run until 26 November, 2011.