Anna-Jane Casey
as Alison Mayhew
Anna-Jane Casey has been performing professionally for over 40 years in all areas of TV, theatre and music. She hails from Lancashire and came to London at 16 to play Rumpleteaser in Cats. She appeared in the original London casts of Children of Eden, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Out of the Blue and Grease. She played Buffy, Dinah and Pearl in Starlight Express, Anita in West Side Story, Velma Kelly in Chicago, Mickey in My One and Only and Frankie Frayne in On Your Toes with Adam Cooper.
Anna-Jane played the title role in Sweet Charity at the Sheffield Crucible (Best Actress nomination at the 2003 TMA Awards) and was invited back to the Crucible to play the title role in Pam Gem’s Piaf. She played Dot in Sunday in the Park with George opposite Daniel Evans (Menier Chocolate Factory), and Maggie in Hobson’s Choice at the Watermill in Newbury, having played Mabel in Mack and Mabel there opposite David Soul (2005 TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical).
She has played the title role in Aladdin (Hackney Empire), Courtesan in Comedy of Errors (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park), Ella Peterson in Bells Are Ringing at the Union Theatre (WOS nomination for Best Actress in a Musical and OFFIE nomination for Best Actress), Olive James in Radio Times (Watermill Newbury), Jenny in Company (Sheffield Crucible), Lady Of The Lake in Spamalot (The Playhouse Theatre), Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot (The Victoria Palace), Forbidden Broadway (The Vaudeville Theatre and Menier Chocolate Factory), Jerry’s Girls (St James Theatre) and Lottie in Mack and Mabel (UK and Ireland tour). During 2016, she played the role of Violet Butterfield in a new musical Flowers for Mrs Harris (Sheffield Crucible), and she returned to the Crucible at Christmas 2016 to play the title role of Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun. She was part of the cast of Stepping Out (Vaudeville Theatre) playing the dance teacher Mavis Turner alongside Amanda Holden and Tracy-Ann Oberman, joined the UK and International tour of Billy Elliot, to great acclaim and worked on the UK and Ireland tour of Tim Firth and Gary Barlow’s Calendar Girls playing the leading role of Annie Clarke.
2019 and early 2020 saw her at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto and then the Gielgud Theatre, London playing MRS BURKE in the West End revival of Conor McPhearson’s Girl from the North Country, a new play with music by Bob Dylan which she then followed up by playing ALICE in the award-winning Stages at the Vaults Festival London. She could be seen through the pandemic in The Band Plays On, a new play with music, streamed online by the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
She originated the role of Fraulein Fritzie Kost in the award winning production of Cabaret at the KitKat Club/Playhouse Theatre alongside Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley and from there, went onto play Cilla Quack, the goose that lays the golden eggs, to Sir Ian McKellen’s Mother Goose at the Duke of York’s Theatre and across the UK, winning the 2023 British Pantomime Award for Best Supporting Artist.
In 2024, she played the iconic Sybil Fawlty in the sell-out run of Fawlty Towers at the Apollo Theatre and 2025 saw her singing with the BBC Big Band for Radio 2, the Ulster Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland playing MRS LOVETT in Sweeney Todd and Northern Ireland Opera Company playing SALLY DURRANT in Follies.
In 2026, she played the iconic roles of Judy Garland in Judy – End of the Rainbow at Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, Opera House in Belfast, and Everyman Theatre in Cork, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spiderwoman at Curve Theatre, Leicester and on tour.
FILM AND TELEVISION INCLUDE: Family Guy (Stewie’s British Mother), AMY in The Royal, (Granada Television), Shirley walker in Doctors (BBC), Beyond the Sea directed by Kevin Spacey, Sophie in EastEnders (BBC), Geri in Coronation Street (ITV), Linda Kemp in The Bill and Vanessa Lloyd in Silent Witness (BBC). She has also filmed guest lead roles in Heartbeat (Yorkshire Television) and Holby City (BBC), and she has appeared on BBC Proms Extra with Katie Derham.
She has sung all over the world with orchestras such as The Halle, The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, The RTE National Orchestra of Ireland, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro Massimo orchestra of Palermo and The BBC Concert Orchestra. She was a principal soloist at the 2010 Rodgers and Hammerstein Prom with the John Wilson Orchestra and joined them again, along with Sir Michael Parkinson, Curtis Stigers and Seth Macfarlane, for BBC’s Hollywood Swinging Christmas 2010, and 2012 saw her star again with John Wilson’s orchestra in the Broadway Sound Prom. She regularly tours with the orchestra, also appears in her own cabaret show both national and internationally and is a regular guest soloist on Friday Night Is Music Night on BBC Radio 2.
