Beauty and the Beast - Mason Taylor

MASON TAYLOR
(Ensembleu/s Maurice/Bookseller)
This is Mason's tenth West End musical, joining the original Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (following his debut in the Edinburgh première in 1972), One Friday, Kismet, Evita, both London Palladium runs of Singin' in the Rain, Some Like it Hot, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I and The Goodbye Girl. Other London appearances include work with the Young Vic and English National Opera and the 1987 Royal Variety Performance.

Half of his career has been spent outside London in Rep, seasons and tours from Inverness to Jersey and Norwich to Belfast and as far afield as Tokyo, in everything from pantomime and farce to Brecht and Shakespeare and particularly Music Theatre, with roles ranging from Pharaoh and Narrator in Joseph through Ché in Evita, Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirate King and Sir Despard Murgatroyd to Dr Bartolo in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Recent highlights include a tour of Chess, The Phantom of the Opera in Edinburgh and last, but not least, work with schools.

Off stage his passions include Scotland, food and music. Having written and sung with Rock and Folk bands since the seventies, he is now involved in more serious composition, including a piece premiéred at Birmingham Cathedral. Mason is now in his third year in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. High spots of the first twelve months; a successful ascent of Ben Nevis and a seven-week stint as Maurice.