Michael Ball (singer) solo concert at the classical music festival. Ball appeared in the Royal Variety Performance at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool on 3 December 2007 singing "You Can't Stop the Beat" with the rest of the cast from "Hairspray", the musical he was appearing in at the time. He continued in the role of Edna Turnblad in the musical at the Shaftesbury Theatre until 29 April 2009. On 2 March 2008, Ball appeared as the guest on the BBC Radio 4 show "Desert Island Discs", during which he talked about his early life and his career, including his struggle with stage
Happy End (musical) is based on Damon Runyon's short story, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown". The musical premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on May 7, 1977, and closed on July 10, 1977, after 75 performances. Directed by Robert Kalfin and Patricia Birch and staged by Birch, the cast starred Christopher Lloyd, Grayson Hall and Meryl Streep. A 1984 production by Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage was televised as part of the short-lived "America's Musical Theater" series on PBS. The musical was produced at Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland in February 1995, using the English adaptation by Michael Feingold (as did