By Betsy Everett
Yorkshire Dales rising stars Kory Spink, 16, Lola Reilly, 13, and brother Willis, 8, briefly left rehearsals of the Hawes pantomime recently to make their West End stage debut.
They took part in a one-off production of the musical, The Lazy Ace, staged by the Pauline Quirke Academy of Darlington, at the Shaftesbury Theatre, currently home to the smash hit, Motown the Musical.
The trio attend the academy every Sunday and prepared for months in the lead-up to the show, a musical comedy set on the glitzy, glamorous Las Vegas Strip in the 1950s. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the casino scene detective Chip Buddy is in search of a card shark known as The Lazy Ace.
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The trio spent the day of the show rehearsing with a team of professionals ahead of the spectacular evening performance in front of a packed audience.
Their West End appearance coincided with preparations for demanding parts in the Hawes Amateur Operatic Society’s Dick Whittington and the Caribbean Pirates, in which Kory had the title role, Lola played his loyal cat, Tommy, and Willis was in the chorus. They put on five shows in as many days.
