FELA! The Musical

A provocative hybrid of dance, theatre and music, FELA! explores the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti.

The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical has actor Sahr Ngaujahleading the cast of FELA!, along withMelanie Marshallas Funmilayo Kuti and Paulette Ivory as Sandra Izsadore.

Featuring many of Fela Kuti’s most captivating songs and Bill T Jones’s visionary, award-winning staging, FELA! reveals Kuti's controversial life as an artist and political activist and celebrates his pioneering music.

Fela Anikulapo-Kutiwas born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, north of Lagos in 1938. His father was a Christian schoolmaster, minister and master pianist and his mother was a world-recognised feminist leader, who was very active in the anti-colonial Nigerian women's movement during the struggle for independence.

Educated in Nigeria, and later in London where he studied music, Fela Kuti found his authentic musical voice adding elements of traditional Yoruba, high life and jazz, giving rise to "Afrobeat".

The hottest musician in Africa is Fela created a club called ‘The Shrine’, in one of the most dangerous parts of the city, and which rarely opened up before 2 or 3am, depending on his mood.

Through his music, both at The Shrine and everywhere else, the father of Afrobeat, used pounding eclectic rhythms with incendiary lyrics to attack and condemned military regimes in Nigeria for their mismanagement, corruption and marginalization of the underprivileged.

He was subsequently constantly harassed, arrested more than 200 times and beaten savagely on many occasions.

Despite this he continued to live in Nigeria and produced in excess of 70 albums of music during his career. He toured the United States and Europe with an entourage of 80 people to public and critical acclaim. He died in August 1997 at the age of fifty-eight from an AIDS-related illness. In Nigeria one million people attended his funeral.

This production features many of Fela’s most captivating songs and Bill T Jones’ 2010 Tony Award-winning choreography.

FELA! Can be enjoyed from Wed 20 Jul - Sun 28 Aug 2011 at Sadler’s Wells, London. Tue - Sun at 7.30pm, Sat & Sun mats at 2.30pm. Adm: £15 - £50. Info: 0844 412 4300 / www.sadlerswells.com

Dame Marjorie Dutton's Best Of British Music Hall

Combining comedy and variety, this show is one of the finest examples of Edwardian Music Hall in London.

In celebration of St George's DayDame Marjorie summons her loyal and eminent Master of Ceremonies, Jim McManus to bring together the finest collection of her most delightful Music Hall chums, to present a first class show, brimming with crafty innuendo, cheeky music and tuneful comedy.

The Best of British Music Hall charts a charmingly entertaining journey that toe taps and sings along through a glorious century of Music Hall, Variety, Vaudeville, Broadway and West End show stoppers.

Special guests will join the show which also features Music Hall treasures including, the sensational Miss Helen Watson, star of Theatre Royal Basingstoke's Summer Time Special and the Berkshire Watermill's Seasonal Sauce, and the stunningly glamorous Roz Nelson performing her romantic renditions of the British Music Hall's favourite songs.

Catch the show on Sat 23 April at The Broadway Theatre, Barking, IG11 7LS. Adm: £10, conc £9. 3pm. Info: 0208 507 5607 / www.thebroadwaybarking.com

Please check back at a later date for updated listings.