Mark Benton as Francis, the Director of the play. In July 2012, it was announced that Benton would star as Edna Turnblad in the 2013 UK tour of "Hairspray the Musical", starting in February 2013 and finishing in September 2013. In 2015 Benton appeared as Police Constable Walt Everett in the BBC daytime series "Father Brown", episode 3.12 "The Standing Stones". He also appeared as Les in the "La Couchette", the first episode of the second series of anthology series "Inside No. 9". In 2015, Benton presented the BBC One daytime game show "The Edge" for its first series, being replaced by
West End Frame Awards categories (some new categories and some returning categories) including Best Jukebox musical, Best Performance of a Song in a Musical (the Award was previously won by Rachel Tucker in 2012), Understudy Of The Year and Best West End Debut. On 15 May 2013 the full list of nominees for West End Frame's Understudy of the Year Award was announced. Voting then opened on Thursday 16 May for a six-week voting period, noticeably longer than Best Jukebox musical and Best Performance of a Song in a Musical which received two week long voting periods. Ashley Day won the award for understudying