Jessie Wallace

Jessie Wallace, best known for playing Kate Slater on TV's EastEnders, will make her West End debut playing Maureen in Rent Remixed. The actress will replace Denise Van Outen in the role on 24 December 2007.

In addition to EastEnders, in which she appeared for five years starting in 2000, Wallace has been seen on TV in French and Saunders, A Class Apart, Miss Marie Lloyd and The Dinner Party.

Directed by William Baker, this new version of Rent has been reworked and re-orchestrated by Baker and Steve Anderson, the creative team behind Kylie Minogue. Larson's show opened at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre on 29 April, 1996 and is still running there. It won four Tony Awards, including the 1996 Tony for Best Musical. Rent first came to London in 1998, in a recreation of Michael Greif's original staging, where it ran at the Shaftesbury Theatre for 17 months. It subsequently had another West End run, in a different production, at the Prince of Wales Theatre in December 2001.

The cast also features Siobhan Donaghy as Mimi, Luke Evans as Roger, Oliver Thornton as Mark, Leon Lopez as Collins, Jay Webb as Angel, Francesca Jackson as Joanne and Craig Stein as Benny. The rest of the cast includes Ruth Augilera, Jamie Sampson, Antony Luperi, Earl Perkins, Lewis Griffiths and Philippa Stefani.