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Dave WillettsDave Willetts (born June 24th 1952 is a British singer and actor known for having leading roles in West End musicals. Willetts is something of an enigma in that he has had no formal singing, dancing or acting lessons. Before he was 20 he rarely visited the theatre. It was whilst he was working as a quality control supervisor at an engineering firm in the Midlands he became interested in amateur dramatics. He came to the attention of Bob Hamlyn, artistic director of the Belgrade Theatre, in Coventry after his sensitive and emotional portrayal of Charlie Gordon in the Charles Strouse musical, Flowers for Algernon. Hamlyn cast him as "third flunky from the left" in another show by Strouse, Annie. It was at this time, while Willetts was in his thirties, that he began his meteoric rise to top. Director Trevor Nunn put Willetts into the chorus of the original London production of Les Miserables and within a year he was understudy to Colm Wilkinson in the lead role of Jean Valjean, which Willetts eventually took over when Wilkinson left in 1986 to join the Broadway company. In 1987, when Michael Crawford departed London for the US premier of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, Willetts succeeded him at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End's hottest ticket. He subsequently played the role of The Phantom in Manchester on the UK Tour to critical acclaim, winning an Evening News Theatre Award. Since then, Willetts has appeared in a concert version of Jesus Christ Superstar, taken the lead role in the acclaimed production of Leicester Haymarket's production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. In 1998 he was again asked to play the role of Jean Valjean, this time in the 10th Anniversary production of Les Miserables in Sydney, Australia. In 2004 he appeared in the West End production of Ragtime alongside Maria Friedman. In December of the same year he appeared in pantomime in Bromley.
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