1. Wayne Philip Colin Sleep was born on 17 July 1948 and is a British dancer, director, choreographer, and actor who appeared on the BBC series The Real Marigold on Tour and ITV's The Real Full Monty.
41 Facts About Wayne Sleep
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Wayne Sleep's mother enrolled him at an early age with Geraldine Lamb Dance School, where he studied tap and jazz, wanting to be the next Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire rather than a ballet dancer.
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Wayne Sleep lived at Friar Terrace on the Headland and attended Baltic Street Junior School.
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Wayne Sleep began ballet lessons in Hartlepool in 1955 with Muriel Carr, before gaining a Leverhulme Scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in 1961 and joining the Royal Ballet in 1966 and becoming a senior principal dancer performing globally.
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Wayne Sleep is often chosen for character roles because of his unusual physique.
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Wayne Sleep created the role of Mr Mistoffelees in Lloyd Webber's musical Cats in London's West End at the New London Theatre on 11 May 1981.
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Wayne Sleep appeared as himself in The Goodies episode "Football Crazy".
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Wayne Sleep was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1981 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews following a performance of the musical Cats at the New London Theatre.
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Wayne Sleep is remembered for having danced with Diana, Princess of Wales at the annual Christmas party of the Friends of Covent Garden at the Royal Opera House in 1985.
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In 2003, Wayne Sleep appeared in the reality-TV series I'm a Celebrity.
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Wayne Sleep completed a tour of Magic of the Musicals with Marti Webb and Robert Meadmore, as well as appearing as a judge on BBC One's Strictly Dance Fever.
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Wayne Sleep has worked with the British Shakespeare Company on three occasions, playing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream twice as well as Feste in Twelfth Night.
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Wayne Sleep has appeared as Uncle Willie Tracy in a performance of High Society and appeared as the Emcee in Cabaret.
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In January 2011, Wayne Sleep featured on British reality cooking show Come Dine with Me, with presenter Terry Christian, Labour MP Diane Abbott and model Danielle Lloyd.
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In February 2014, Wayne Sleep appeared in the Channel 4 show Big Ballet about overweight ballet dancers.
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Wayne Sleep finished fourth in the 2014 series of the BBC One cookery contest Celebrity MasterChef.
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Wayne Sleep appeared in the BBC miniseries that followed a group of celebrity pensioners on a journey to India, The Real Marigold Hotel, broadcast from January to February in 2016.
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Wayne Sleep appeared in subsequent episodes travelling to Florida and Japan in December 2016 and then China and Cuba in December 2017.
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Wayne Sleep appeared in the BBC's Queer as Art documentary celebrating the LGBTQ contribution to British arts in the 50 years since decriminalisation.
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In January 2018 Wayne Sleep entered the British version of Celebrity Big Brother, making the final and finishing in fifth place.
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Wayne Sleep performed as an actor in The Virgin Soldiers, The First Great Train Robbery and Elizabeth.
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Wayne Sleep performed as a dancer in The Tales of Beatrix Potter as Squirrel Nutkin and Tom Thumb.
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Wayne Sleep directed the choreography of the tango scene in the 1978 film Death on the Nile.
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Wayne Sleep took the role of Puck in one of the early productions of Benjamin Britten's Shakespeare opera A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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In 2009 Wayne Sleep appeared as the MC in Life is a Cabaret by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which presented excerpts from Cabaret, alongside Siobhan Dillon as Sally Bowles.
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Wayne Sleep appeared in 2019 in Cinderella at Cambridge Art's Theatre, Cambridgeshire.
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Wayne Sleep appeared in 2016 in Jack and the Beanstalk at Theatre Royal, Norwich.
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Sleep is a subject in David Hockney's painting George Lawson and Wayne Sleep, which is exhibited at the Tate in London.
29.
Wayne Sleep is mentioned in "Never Say Alan Again", an episode from the second series of I'm Alan Partridge.
30.
Tex tries to correct this misconception by drawling "Get on yer horse and drink yer milk" in an approximation of John Wayne's voice, but Alan is merely further confirmed in his belief that Sleep is the man to whom Tex is referring.
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Wayne Sleep is mentioned numerous times in the film Billy Elliot and in the British stage musical version of this film.
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In Sean Lock's 15 Storeys High, Wayne Sleep is one of several people to whom Lock's character Vince Clark addresses a letter.
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In 2017, Wayne Sleep performed at Dame Vera Lynn's 100th birthday celebrations at the London Palladium.
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In 2020, Wayne Sleep was portrayed by dancer Jay Webb in "Avalanche", a season 4 episode of the TV series The Crown, depicting Wayne Sleep's performance with Diana, Princess of Wales, at the Royal Opera House.
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In 2016, Wayne Sleep was the first artist to appear on BBC Radio 2's Friday Night Is Music Night, recorded live at the Watford Colosseum on Monday 10 October with BBC Concert Orchestra.
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Wayne Sleep received honorary degrees from the Universities of Exeter, Teesside and Plymouth and is a recipient of the Carl Alan Award, an industry honour voted for by dance professionals in recognition of outstanding contributions to dance.
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Wayne Sleep was friendly with theatre critic Jack Tinker; the two men were often mistaken for each other.
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At Tinker's memorial celebration, a pastiche of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd was staged entitled Tinker Jack, the Demon Critic of Fleet Street in which Wayne Sleep played Tinker, serially executing several major West End producers for inflicting particular dramatic atrocities upon the city's theatre goers.
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Wayne Sleep continues to pass his knowledge through private tuition and workshops for all ages.
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Wayne Sleep is a patron of the British Ballet Organisation and vice president of the Royal Academy of Dance.
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Wayne Sleep is an ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK and the Royal Voluntary Service as well as supporting the Terrence Higgins Trust and other charities.