Eric Hutton’s smash hit adult (very adult!) pantomime show Jack and the Big Stalk running in the Cellar until the end of January will see a change of cast shortly when director Peter Court moves in to play Jack’s mother with Karen Campbell-Gillies taking over the role of Princess Ophelia. Original cast members Anthony Stonier and Carol Trench are to head for Abu Dhabi in the Middle East where they will be working at the prestige Crowne Plaza.

“They’re going as a duo and will be working in the cocktail bar in the hotel,” says Eric Hutton who has organised the gig with pianist Chantal Sanders. Chantal, who has been appearing in Durban at The Royal, is about to return to Dubai where she has been working for about three and a half years at the Ritz Carlton. Between them, Eric and Chantal are now on the lookout to fill the tremendous need for quality performers to appear at numerous venues in the Middle East.

“We are only operating in the top class hotels and the performers have a good life. They have rooms to themselves with three meals a day and perform four 45 minute sets in the evening. So we are looking for people who can produce laid-back sophisticated cocktail sounds but who can also do the Elton or Streisand numbers as well as the more commercial songs from well-known musicals. You can only buy alcohol at hotels in Abu Dhabi so the venues are very popular. We need vocalists, soloists and keyboard or piano artistes. At the moment, we can only take trios as a maximum but we will soon be looking out for bands and dancers.”

Contact Eric Hutton on (031) 208-0763 or 082 788-2563