Michael Ball

Michael regularly tours the UK as a concert artist and has sold millions of albums over the last 25 years; he’s performed in Australia, China, USA, Singapore and, in 2007, made his BBC Proms debut: An Evening with Michael Ball at the Royal Albert Hall marked the first time a musical theatre star had been given a solo concert at the Proms. He has a successful radio broadcasting career which includes his own show, Sunday Morning with Michael Ball. He is also a popular TV presenter and, in addition to hosting his own series, The Michael Ball Show on ITV1, he starred with Imelda Staunton in the Victoria Wood BBC TV film, That Day We Sang and is also a regular guest presenter on Lorraine, This Morning, and The One Show.

In 2015 he performed the role of Mack Sennett in Mack and Mabel at Chichester Festival Theatre, with music and lyrics by the great Jerry Herman. The production then went on a successful UK Tour. In 2016 he recorded a new album with Alfie Boe, entitled Together, (Decca). The album went platinum in just over 5 weeks, was 2016’s Christmas No. 1, has now sold over 500,000 copies and was the biggest selling album release of the year. Michael and Alfie also entertained more than 80,000 fans on a sold out 29-date tour of the UK. In 2018 the pair followed up this success with Together Again, another record breaking, platinum-selling album, which had the additional honour of taking home two Classical Brit Awards for ‘Best Group’ and ‘Classic FM Best Album’. Earlier this year Michael returned to the London stage for the Grade Linnit/ENO production of Chess at the Coliseum, playing Anatoly.

Notable engagements elsewhere: West End debut as Marius in the original London cast of Les Misérables; he starred in the West End production of The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love (West End and Broadway), in the London production of Sondheim’s Passion and as Caractacus Potts in the West End musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  In 2005 he returned to Broadway as Count Fosco The Woman in White, which transferred from London’s West End and, in the same year, made his New York City Opera debut as Reginald Bunthorne Patience.   In 2007 he made his debut at ENO as Haj/The Poet Kismet. In 2008 he made box office history with his Olivier Award-winning performance as Edna Turnblad in the smash hit musical Hairspray, which he then took on tour across the UK. In 2013 he won his second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his critically acclaimed title role in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.