Rick Wakeman to perform at the Princess Theatre this December

For the first time in years, Rick is not doing a Christmas tour, instead he's performing a few one-man shows in selected places, including the Princess Theatre Hunstanton on Thursday 7th December.

After studying piano privately for 12 years, Rick gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where he studied piano, clarinet and orchestration. In March 2012 Prince Charles presented him with his Fellowship of the RCM. He was also made a Professor at the London College of Music.

As a much sought after session musician in the late sixties and early seventies, Rick played on more than 2000 records including such hits as Cat Steven’s Morning Has Broken, David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Life on Mars and worked with a real eclectic mixture of other notable artistes such as Donovan, Cilla Black, Marc Bolan, Black Sabbath, Lou Reed, Mary Hopkin, Dana, Al Stewart , Elton John and John Williams.

In March 1970 he joined Strawbs and his first album with them, “Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios”, paved the way for “Folk-Rock” and reviews from their concert at The Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 11^th of that year, did much to take Rick’s career to a new level.

He joined YES in August of 1971 and has been in and out of that band on quite a few occasions. (One journalist likened the relationship to that of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, in as much as they can’t live with each other but in the same breath, can’t live without each other. Rick told the journalist he didn’t disagree as long as it was accepted that he was “Richard Burton”).

Both as a solo artist and with YES he has sold more than 50,000,000 albums, although he says that only a clairvoyant would be able to tell you where the royalties went!

He has written 2 film scores for Ken Russell, (Lisztomania and Crimes of Passion), 2 scores for Harry Palmer films starring Michael Caine, (Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St. Petersburg), and the award winning 1976 Winter Olympics film White Rock as well as Gole, Hero, A Day After The Fair and 2 horror films, Creepshow 2 and The Burning.

He has also carved out quite a television career in the UK, appearing on every single programme of the Grumpy Old Men series, just under 100 appearances on Countdown plus numerous invites onto Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Have I got News For You, Pointless, The Chase, and had 6 years as a regular presenter on Watchdog. On Radio 4 he can be regularly heard on The News Quiz, Just a Minute and It’s Your Round. He also hosted the stand-up show Live at Jongleurs on television for five years which was shown around the world .

He has two current books available ...Grumpy Old Rockstar and Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rockstar, both of which made the best sellers list. The third in the series is due for release in 2024.

He still finds time each year to perform concerts around the world which can range from his extremely popular one man shows to extravaganzas with symphony orchestras and choirs.

In 2013 he performed 12 consecutive sell out one man shows at the Edinburgh Festival.

In 2014 he toured his highly acclaimed Journey to the Centre of the Earth with a symphony orchestra, choir and band to more than 30,000 people in the UK and was also two further concerts were performed in 2019 at The Royal Festival Hall to celebrate Rick’s 70^th birthday.

In 2018 and 2019 he released two albums, Piano Portraits and Piano Odyssey reaching the Top 10 in the UK and recorded a piano album especially for Xmas entitled Christmas Portraits .

The 2020 pandemic hit the music industry extremely hard, especially when it came to performances and subsequently all Rick’s concerts and tours were put on hold. Many were rescheduled for 2021 and 2022 as some countries were able to return to some semblance of normality when it came to live performances, but as the lockdowns continued, 2021 became a washout, as indeed it was for much of the entertainment industry.

During this period, he recorded the highly acclaimed prog rock album, his first for many years, entitled The Red Planet which achieved a top 20 chart position and continues to be a best seller.

He followed this up in 2023 with A Gallery of the Imagination, another top 20 album.

He performed two sell out concerts at The London Palladium in February and tours are already booked for America , the UK and Europe with his band the English Rock Ensemble for 2024 with an American tour to follow.

For the first time in years, Rick is not doing a Christmas tour but is doing just a few one man shows in November and December in selected places, and after having such a great time at the Princess Theatre in Hunstanton in the past, he can’t wait to bring his current one man show to the stage there.

The one man show will be different from the one man piano show as he will be using keyboards which enable him to perform pieces that can’t be achieved on the piano.

The ludicrous stories will of course still be a major part of the show.

Life is rarely dull for Rick or those around him!

The show for this extraordinarily talented musician is bound to be a sell out. Get your tickets now at: https://thelittleboxoffice.com...