Ghost dances for Children in Need

Published: 12 November 2013
Reporter: Sheila Connor

Wendy Mae Brown and the touring cast of Ghost The Musical Credit: Sean Ebsworth Barnes

The end of this week marks the annual charity appeal night for BBC's Children in Need, and the company of Ghost the Musical held their own event to raise money for this cause.

The whole company, cast and crew, appeared on Southampton's Mayflower Theatre stage on 3 November for their event Ghost is Dancing.

For the last five months, twelve technicians from the touring company were taught to dance by twelve professional dancers from the cast. They demonstrated their skills in front of an all-star panel of judges, which included Strictly Come Dancing 2011 finalist Jason Donovan and musical star Nigel Harman, as part of a grand charity fundraising gala.

Company manager Neil White said, "We had the idea of doing an event that would raise money for Children in Need that would also help our cast get to know our technical crew.

"We were initially going to do a small Strictly Come Dancing style event in a hotel ballroom. All departments from wigs, wardrobe, projection, stage management and lighting had volunteers to learn to dance and we set a fundraising target of £14,000.

"As the months went on, every one of the 52 touring company started to get involved and the Mayflower Theatre kindly gave us free use of the theatre for the event.

"We had an incredible time doing it, our audience was amazing and theatre felt like a massive party."

The fundraising total has now reached £37,022 and Whoopi Goldberg, who starred in the film Ghost on which the show is based, gave her support by recording a special video message for all of those involved.

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, Bookshop.org, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, LW Theatres and QuayTickets, are affiliate links for which BTG may earn a small fee at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Are you sure?