Cirque du Soleil singer Nicola Dawn-Brook is keeping her fingers crossed for a bit of time off when the company comes to Birmingham next month as she hopes to see her boyfriend - who is across the city at the Hippodrome Theatre playing in the musical Tommy. Nicola and fellow actor and singer Tim Newman have been together since 2000 when they both performed in Fame together, but they rarely manage to be in the same city at the same time. And with a cross-over of a just a few days it will need a bit of ingenuity from each of them if they are to see the other's show. "Tim has seen me in Cirque du Soleil, but they are in rehearsal for Tommy so I haven't seen it yet. He's Uncle Errol who is a bit creepy. "It is really unusual for us to be together, we are very often not even in the same country - thank God for phone cards, the internet and cheap flights. So we are hoping to manage a bit of time together Birmingham." Nicola, who hails from Cheadle Hulme, in Cheshire, has performed with a host of musicals including Chess, Aspects of Love, Copacabana, Fame and Taboo and has been on stage in Birmingham many times. She is now enjoying her second period with Cirque du Soleil's touring show Saltimbanco. After a stint with the company in Belgium, the British tour is perfect for her as it is allowing her to spend time with family while the show is in Manchester this month. "I am really pleased that Cirque du Soleil is now touring the UK," she says. "It is great to see so much theatre coming out of London now. I think touring is definitely the future as people outside London also want to see shows like this." Nicola's role is to be the female singer. "She is called Chanteuse, but is also known as The Priestess. Her role is to float around stage singing, but she is less of a narrator and more of a support to what is happening on stage," says Nicola. Luckily, as she has no head for heights, Nicola, who is in her 30s, is kept well away from the high wires and the trapeze. "I would be scared of falling if they wanted me to go anywhere high," she says. And in many ways her role is vastly different from a more traditional theatre show. "Musically there are many different styles to this show while each musical will tend to have just one style," she says. "It is also interesting to be moving in the round in a tent. This means the focus of the stage is very different --people are not only looking from all different directions but there are probably lots of different things going on onstage at the same time. "You also need to be very flexible. The singing is all live and it can change every night." | 
