This musical play is a brilliant cocktail of songs and stories from Billie Holiday’s life woven through the haunting memories that plagued her.
Described by The Times as ‘hypnotizing, captivating, electrifying’, actress, singer and writer Nina Kristofferson brings her one woman show The Billie Holiday Story to the Charing Cross Theatre for a strictly limited season following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival in 2011 and a tour of the UK in 2012
The show takes you through the high’s and lows of Billie Holiday’s career punctuating each story with some of her greatest hits like God Bless The Child, Good Morning Heartache, Strange Fruit, Don’t Explain, All of me and many more. Billie’s unusual timbre tells a story like no other jazz singer. Her phrasing and timing is heartfelt as she takes you on a journey which encapsulates her many influences including prostitution, the cops, doing time and the effects drugs had on her life. Her relationship with men, her work, the abuse she suffered by those who took advantage of her. What drove her and finally killed her.
Nina Kristofferson has won critical acclaim as an accomplished singer of many styles encompassing Jazz & Blues to Opera. Nina’s extensive theatre and TV credits include playing Billie Holiday in “I Cover the Waterfront – The Spirit of Billie Holiday” (Nottingham), Medea in “Medea” (Northern Broadsides UK tour), Bess in “Porgy & Bess” (USA), Cleopatra in “Anthony & Cleopatra” (Birmingham), Liz Imbrie “In High Society” (Regent’s Park & West End) and Paula Symons in “Doctors” for the BBC.
