David Soul to Star in London's Jerry Springer

David Soul will be the new star of the West End production of Jerry Springer - The Opera. He will begin performances on July 12, two days after original lead, Michael Brandon, leaves.

Best known as the Hutch half of Starsky and Hutch, Soul has been acting onstage since the mid-1960s. He was an original member of the Firehouse Theater Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1965, he moved to New York with the company. His New York credits included Bertolt Brecht's Baal and John Arden's Sergeant Musgrave's Dance. Recently, British theatergoers have seen him on tours of Catch Me If You Can, The Aspern Papers, Speed The Plow and Comic Potential. His other theatrical credits include The Dead Monkey and Fool For Love which he also directed.

Jerry Springer - The Opera is based on America's most lurid talk show and the U.S. host who brought worldwide television audiences programs entitled: "Pregnant by a Transsexual," "Here Come the Hookers," and "I Refuse to Wear Clothes." The show features music by Richard Thomas and book and lyrics by Thomas and Stewart Lee, who also directs.

The musical was a hit at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was then chosen by new National Theatre Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner to be part of his first season at the helm of the company. Headlined by Brandon as Springer, the musical opened to rave reviews at the National's Lyttelton Theatre on April 29, 2003. It complete a sold-out extended run there on September 30 and then transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in the West End, opening at its current home on November 10. In addition to running in the West End, Jerry Springer is scheduled to have a six-week pre-Broadway tryout at San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre in early spring 2005 and open on Broadway on October 20, 2005.