The market town performers stepping into the West End spotlight

When you think of theatre, the West End comes to mind, a hubbub of voices as the audience enters, curtain up; for many, a creative heart of London...

The sweeping hills of Shropshire might not come to mind as quickly in this context - but maybe they should, as Shrewsbury is emerging as a training ground for musical theatre talent.

Several local performers have recently secured lead roles in the West End.

Among them, Stephenson Ardern-Sodje, who took over the title role in the musical Hamilton last month, having first performed it a decade ago.

Meanwhile Asha Parker-Wallace, who also first trod the boards in the town, is playing Nala in the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre.

Paying tribute to her Shrewsbury upbringing, she said: "There's places where you can go to work on your craft and they're actually fantastic places to be."

In his first job out of drama school, Ardern-Sodje was third cover for Hamilton as part of the original cast, and ended up being called on to perform.

"Going on for the first time as Hamilton is something I'll always remember," he said. "This really does feel like coming full circle now."

His earliest experiences were in Shrewsbury amateur dramatics, and he remembered being in productions at Severn Theatre and in Les Mis at his sixth form college.

Unsure how to turn his hobby into a career, taking part in an open casting call for Hamilton changed the course of his life.

"They liked me and actually sent me to drama school to study," he explained.

He has since performed Shakespeare at the Globe and played Simba in the Lion King, also appearing in the role at Manchester Arena in front of 12,000 people, "which made me feel a bit like a rock star".

He said his drama and music teachers at Wakeman School and Arts College had always championed him – as had local am-dram director Alex Hinton who still travels to watch him on stage.

"Having people there, just to know it's possible, is a really big key to open the door," he said.

"It's a real shame that's not something that's necessarily available to kids and adults all over the country."

Parker-Wallace signed up to Stagecoach performing arts classes when she moved to Shrewsbury, which she said awoke a love for musical theatre.

She later joined local company Curtain Call Studios, which she described as "fantastic". It was there that she first thought: "I need to take this seriously... I think I might have a talent for it."

A former pupil of Thomas Adams School in Wem, she signed with an agent while still at drama school and booked Burlesque, her first show, a couple of weeks before graduating.

Appearing on the West End stage after dreaming about it for so long was "actually insane", she said, "like an out-of-body experience". "I think I cried."

Lion King was the first show she had ever seen, as a six-year-old in London with her parents.

"I remember watching it and feeling so inspired by the performers on the stage," she said.

"Now I can be in the position where I can potentially inspire the next generation of people to pursue a career in this, or to pursue their dreams."

Ahmed Hamad, who is starring as Charles Cholmondeley in Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre, also highlighted the number of lighting designers and directors from Shrewsbury.

A former member of Mad Cow Productions and Get Your Wigle On, he said there were "so many" theatre groups in the town comparative to its size.

The performer, who has Sudanese and Saudi Arabian heritage, said he felt fortunate to be working at a time when opportunities were open to him.

"If this show had been done maybe 20 years ago, I probably wouldn't have been seen for it," he said.

"I remember saying to my agent after graduating, 'I'd love to be in shows like Hamilton and Lion King, but I also don't want to be in a show just because of my race'.

"I also want to play roles that haven't been played by a black person, North East African, Middle Eastern person."

Additional reporting by Susie Rack.

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