Kelly Price in Guys and Dolls

Age: 24

Currently: Starring as Sarah Brown in the current West End production of Guys and Dolls, which she has been part of since it first opened last year. Price was initially as Jenna Russell’s understudy and a member of the ensemble. She has now taken over for Russell.

Hometown: Wigan, Lancashire. Price sings with an impeccable American accent, but offstage, her vowels betray her native Lancashire roots. Nowadays, she lives in East London, at London Fields. “It’s between Bethnal Green and Clapton,” she notes, “and I like it there.”

Peggy Sawyer Syndrome: “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’re coming back a star!” Peggy Sawyer was famously told in 42nd Street, and the same thing happened to Price. On the day of the show’s very first preview in June 2005, Russell fell ill, and Price had to go on. “It was the very first performance we’d ever done for a public audience. I was so overwhelmed by it all that I didn’t have a chance to think about it,” Price recalls. “It was good actually not to be able to digest what was going on; otherwise fear would have crept in.” But surely she was at least daunted by the prospect of such a high-pressure beginning, when no one else had performed the show in public either? “It wasn’t so much frightening as really exciting, though I must have been terrified as well.” How prepared was she? “We hadn’t even done any understudy rehearsals yet, but luckily, I’d been able to sit and watch it all during the rehearsal period, and so I had absorbed everything that was going on. And you can’t ruin an opportunity like that by being frightened or scared—you’ve just got to grab it and enjoy it. I could have done one thing or the other—I just enjoyed it.”

Late Bloomer: “I started quite late”, Price admits about her acting training. It wasn’t until she was doing her A Levels at college that she had her first taste of theatre. “I enjoyed doing all kinds of things like sport,” Price confesses. “But when I was 18 and doing my A Levels at Winstanley College in Wigan, they had a really good performing arts department, so I took performing arts as an extra A Level and enjoyed it!.” Until then, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do professionally. “It’s difficult when you’re 18. You really don’t know what you want to do, but you’re having to make these decisions. That’s why people often go a bit astray, especially people who go to university courses. They’re not really sure they want to be there, so they end up boozing and not going to the course.” Price took a year off after her A levels and learnt to sing. “I didn’t even know I could, but I knew you had to learn properly to do these things. So I rang around and found a lady to give me singing lessons. It went from there. I joined the National Youth Choir, and we did a concert at the Royal Albert Hall of a piece by Karl Jenkins that is still played on Classic FM now. That was so exciting.” She also formed part of a singing trio. “We went to Germany and entertained the troops on army bases.”

Work Ethic: Price then auditioned for drama school and got into the prestigious Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts to do a three-year degree course training: “You really have to want to do it, because it’s your own money you’re spending to go there, and it’s that want that gets you through.” But she’s not scared of hard work: “You have to work hard! People may have a talent, but unless you nurture it and work on it really strongly, it’s a waste. You can’t just expect to get to places without working hard to get there.”

Kelly Price and Adam Cooper in Guys and Dolls

Stars in Her Eyes: While she was still at drama school, she did her first professional job, participating in a workshop presentation of the second act of The Woman in White that was then being developed. “I was performing the soprano line, and it was very exciting to be in the same room as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Trevor Nunn and the rest of the team at the Really Useful Company’s offices,” Price says. The casting director, David Grindrod, also cast Mamma Mia! She went for an audition for the ABBA musical. “It was held on the stage of the Prince Edward,” she remembers, “and walking onto that stage took my breath away. She hadn’t finished her training yet, but she grabbed the chance to do it when it was offered: “I left early. My graduation wasn’t until September 2004, but I left in January to start Mamma Mia! I played Lisa and understudied Sophie—and got to play the part quite a lot because there are set holidays the performers take, so I had four weeks doing it.”

A Doll with the Guys: After leaving Mamma Mia!, Price had a month off before starting rehearsals for Guys and Dolls. “So I went to New York for a holiday and to do some research before I started this.” On the first day of rehearsals, the company gathered in a “circle of love” to introduce themselves to each other. “I sat there thinking, I know Ewan McGregor is over there, but I can’t look! But he’s a really lovely, ordinary guy, and wouldn’t expect us to treat him like a god.”

Stepping Up: How did Price go from understudy to lead? “I was getting ready to leave the show—I’d done it for a year,” she explains, “But they hadn’t auditioned many people for the role of Sarah Brown, they’d only seen people for Nathan Detroit, Sky Masterson and Miss Adelaide. So I began to think there was a chance there, and then they asked me to read with Adam Cooper, who had already been chosen to be Sky.” She didn’t hear back for a couple of days. “I couldn’t sleep properly! I know it’s a puzzle that they have to put together, to make sure it all fits together; and after reading on a Monday, it wasn’t until Wednesday that I was offered the part. I know that’s only two days, but it was a long time for me.” Now she had to begin rehearsals again, while still performing her old ensemble role by night. “I’d learnt so much the first year from watching Jenna, who was fantastic. We got on very well. She knew what it was like having to rehearse in the daytime and do the show at night, and in fact she was rehearsing a bit for Sunday in the Park with George at the same time, too, that she was going onto! It was strange—while we were both doing that, a lot of people were planning their holidays in places like Mauritius for when they left the show.”

Something New: Though she’d been part of the opening night cast, Price wasn’t personally reviewed. How was she facing the prospect of media attention now? “It is unknown territory for me, so I’m trying not to think about it too much. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like.”