The Authors’ Club, in association with the Theatre & Arts Circle, are pleased to welcome legendary ballet dancer and entertainer Wayne Sleep to the club to talk about his intimate memoir, Just Different, with AC chair Lucy Popescu.
Wayne Sleep has danced with ballet legends Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, partied with Freddie Mercury and performed with Princess Diana, becoming her close friend.
Behind the glitz and glamour, Wayne has always felt like an outsider. Sleep reveals the difficulties for a working-class, gay man in handling the prejudices of his generation and living through the Aids epidemic. Wayne was also the shortest principal dancer in the Royal Ballet – he had to spin twice as fast and jump twice as high to succeed.
In this moving – but also laugh-out-loud and gossip filled – memoir, Wayne Sleep looks back on the extraordinary times he’s lived through, and shows how he danced his way to success, fulfilment and love, overcoming obstacles and prejudice along the way.
Wayne Sleep won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in 1961 and joined the Royal Ballet Company in 1966, becoming a Senior Principal Dancer. He has also worked as an actor, including in musical theatre, and as a choreographer he created, directed and appeared in DASH, which for the first time incorporated all genres (including ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary). He was appointed OBE in 1998 and is the patron of a number of charities. He lives in London and has two entries in the Guinness Book of Records.
Please limit bookings to 2 tickets per person.
November 27 7:30 pm The Lounge, National Liberal Club Open to members of the Authors’ Club, NLC and their guests.
FREE but please book via Eventbrite.Wayne Sleep talking about his memoir Just Different Tickets, Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 7:30 PM | Eventbrite
