From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Well it’s hard to believe that my days in the hills (not to mention the Judy Garland Room) are coming to an end – but indeed they are.

As I write I have just 2 weeks (16 perfs) left as Captain von Trapp – I’ll be hanging up the lederhosen on August 23rd – but what a great year it’s been.

We had a very special visitor in a couple of weeks back – who knew that Rocky Balboa was a Sound of Music fan – but clearly he is!

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

It’s summertime here in London and so it’s been fantastic seeing so many friends from Australia passing through London and making a special stopover to the Palladium. There was a stretch a couple of weeks back where for 16 shows in a row I had friends watching every single performance – no pressure. The past 4 weeks have been extra special as my mum came to stay with us. It was wonderful to see her after 9 months away and great that she got to see me in The Sound of Music. The highlight of her trip I suppose was her last Sunday here when I took her to Paris on the Eurostar for dinner. During that time I also took 3 days off from the show to go to Berlin for the opening night of my dear friend Barrie Kosky’s absolutely brilliant production of Kiss Me Kate at the Komische Oper.

It’s hard to believe it but it’s time once again to say “so long farewell” to 18 more von Trapp children. Last night was the final performance for the Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs have theirs in the coming week – I’ll miss their last nights as I’m off on holiday today for ten days to Mallorca (Captain von Sun Trapp!) so to Davo, Amber, Richy Rich, Hannah, Abigail, Millsie, Shea, Kiera, James, CeCe, LuLu, Eliza, Jarod, Sezzy, Benjy, Ellie, Lozza and Elissa (Granny Gretl) see you later guys – I had a really great time working with you all and we’ll miss you lots!

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Summer has opened triumphantly as Maria and it's great to be playing opposite such a brilliantly gifted performer. We have made it through a very exhausting time rehearsing during the days as well as performing the scheduled 8 shows a week (and with the old kids leaving and the new ones coming in I think I calculated that I worked with 38 von Trapp kids in three weeks!). Press night was last Monday 3rd March when most West End critics revisited the show after 15 months - a big night for not only for Summer but for those of us who had joined the show back in September but had not yet been reviewed - it was like having 5 months of previews!. The reviews have been great and we look forward to continuing the phenomenal success of this fantastic production MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Well last night was the end of an era at the Palladium as we said our final farewell to the wonderful Connie Fisher. Last nights are always such bittersweet occasions and this one was a particularly hard one. Between the matinee and the evening show we all crammed onto the Palladium stage to present Connie with her leaving gift – a very cool Conran Shop silver cuckoo clock – with “there’s a sad sort of clanging in the from the clock in the hall” engraved on the front. I think it meant a lot to her that the gift was from everyone in the building – cast, crew, orchestra, front-of-house and box office staff – a testament to how much she is loved and how much she will be missed. At the end of the final show our producer Andrew Lloyd Webber surprised her on stage during the curtain call and made a very heartfelt speech before presenting her with a score of Sound of Music that he had kept since he was 12 years old. To wipe away the tears we kicked on into the wee small hours at a party thrown for us by Connie in a Soho Club. We also made sure we gave the Nolans a great sendoff – the third group of kids to leave us in the past two weeks – so – Nobbly Nolans – Gastropob, Sophie, JJ, Melissa, Sneezy and Pokerface Mia – goodbye and good luck – you guys were great! Another big week of rehearsals ahead, Miss Summer Strallen starts as Maria this Tuesday 26th February and then officially opens the following Monday 3rd March. MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

More goodbyes this week – tonight it’s so long farewell to another von Trapp group – the Osmonds – another fantastic bunch of von Trapps who have just done their last cuckoo clock – so all best wishes and love to James, Libby (Lizzy), Harry the Hamster, Victoria, Pia and Annabel. And they just presented me with an Aussie Rules football signed by each of them – which is even more appropriate as James is half-Aussie - so thanks Ozmonds so much. And thanks also to my Korean fan Sujin who flew over to London last Wednesday morning and saw FIVE shows in a row before getting the plane home Saturday night! I hope you enjoyed all the shows! MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Today’s a very sad day at the London Palladium because this evening we say “so long farewell” to the Jacksons – who have played Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl since before I joined the show. It’s the first of a series of goodbyes culiminating in the big goodbye to Connie on February 23rd.

So this week I’d like to dedicate my blog to Edward, Megan, Ryan, Ashley, Rosie and Jessica who have been an absolute delight to work with the past five months – we’re gonna miss you guys heaps! MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Well actually the dressing room is a bit of a disaster area at the moment as the Palladium management has very kindly agreed to have it decorated. The pink (yes pink) walls (so painted at the bidding of the last but one occupant Ms Lesley Garrett) are giving way to much more Captain-appropriate nautical pmshades of grey - "Dusted Moss 1 & 2" to be precise - and I couldn't be happier. It's a great privilege to be able to put your own stamp on a room so full of history.

On Australia Day, 26th January, myself and my two fellow Aussie cast-members Helen Walsh and Gavin Mitford decided to celebrate by draping the Aussie flag backstage and torturing the rest of the building with our rousing rendition of Waltzing Matilda. Talk about putting the AUSTRALIA into AUSTRIA!

Two days before I performed our National Anthem Advance Australia Fair at the Australia Day reception in the Exhibition Hall at Australia House. This was at the invitation of the Australian High Commissioner His Excellency The Honourable Richard Alston and I was extremely honoured to oblige. The occasion was made even more exciting a) by the fact that Exhibition Hall starred as Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the first Harry Potter movie and b) that in order to get me back to the London Palladium just in time for the curtain to go up I was whisked away at 7.15pm on a motorbike taxi (see pic). MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Happy New Year to everyone! We’re just embarking on EIGHT shows in FOUR days to see in the first week of January which certainly gets the year off with a bang! Christmas around the Palladium was very jolly and there were lots of very excited little von Trapps running around. Just before Christmas I was really happy to be part of a group of us from the cast who spent a day singing Carols and Sound of Music songs firstly for the kids at Great Ormond St and then over at the Richard Children’s Hospice in the Docklands. Organised by cast member Rachel Bingham, this really was a special day. MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

It's been a busy week - last Tuesday I was inivted to perform here in London at the celebrations for Qantas's 60th Anniversary of the Kangaroo Route from The brief was to take the audience back to 1947, the year in which Qantas first flew from Sydney to London. I sang "Night and Day", "Oh What A Beautiful Morning", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and then as a tribute to Georg von Trapp who died in 1947, "Edelweiss". Also of course worked in Peter Allen's "I Still Call Australia Home" - well it wouldnt' be a Qantas function without it! Last Friday Connie, Aoife, Luke Fredericks, Amy Lennox and I represented the "Sound of Music" cast at the launch of the eighth annual Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, the only major theatre awards voted for by the paying public. And then this Monday, after the show, we had our "Sound of Music" cast and crew Xmas party around the corner from the Palladium at Amuse Bouche, an event that saw Nazis boogying with Nuns well into the early hours of Tuesday and making that evening's show for some quite a mountain to climb! MORE NEWS...

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

This week I turned into a total political nerd and downloaded every bit of audio and video that I could about the Australian Federal Election. I was very honoured to be invited to the Australian High Commission this morning for a breakfast function to watch the live feed of ABCTV's election broadcast. I watched the amazing events unfold and toasted our new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with the likes of ex-Democrats leader and Labor defectee Cheryl Kernot before rushing to the Palladium for the last two shows of the week. And I have to say that when I came to sing "Edelweiss" today the phrase "Bless my homeland forever" had extra special meaning for me.

From my dressing room at the London Palladium...

Hi and welcome to my website. It’s up and running now and I’d like to thank my good mate (and Aussie Musical Director) Daniel Edmonds for all the amazing hard work he’s done on it to date…

Well I’ve just finished my 8th week in Sound of Music and I’m still having the time of my life. What a show, what a production and what a gift of a role.

Connie’s having a well-earned 2-week break and while she’s away the lovely Aoife Mulholland steps up to do six shows out of the eight. This week Gemma Baird had her first two shows as Maria – and did an absolutely fantastic job. So the Aussie Captain von Trapp has played opposite a Welsh, an Irish and now a Scottish Maria! The hills are alive backstage with the sound of accents…One of the highlights of my week was when one of our Martas sneezed very loudly and right next to me in the middle of my rendition of Edelweiss! Everyone’s a critic…the other was being one of the first Aussies to vote in the Federal Election when Australia’s biggest polling booth (at Australia House in the Strand) opened at 10am last Tuesday 13th November. GO KEVIN 07!

"Burke's foray to West End a huge hit"

Simon is profiled on Aussietheatre where he talks about his role in The Sound of Music, as well as how he came to get the part and some of his recent work in the field. Check it out on Aussietheatre.com