Stuart performing on stage with X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke

Stuart performing on stage with X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke

10 February 2016

IN his first West End lead role, Ballynahinch actor Stuart Reid is taking on The Bodyguard love story made famous by Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner.

Performing alongside X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke cast as superstar Rachel Marron, Stuart is Frank Farmer, the former Secret Service agent hired to protect Marron from an unknown stalker.

It emerges that Marron is, behind the diva exterior, “a scared girl with a 10-year-old son”. Both forceful personalities, they don’t plan on falling in love, but of course it gets complicated.

Coming direct from its West End run, The Bodyguard has been entertaining audiences closer to home this month in Belfast’s Grand Opera House with only a handful of seats remaining until it wraps up in Northern Ireland at the weekend.

This romantic thriller of a musical incorporates a host of Whitney Houston classics performed in the 1992 Oscar-nominated film, including ‘One Moment in Time’ and ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’. But as well as the show-closer ‘I Will Always Love You’ — the Dolly Parton song made famous by Houston — there are a number of additional songs not originally showcased.

Aged 11, Stuart made an early theatre debut as The Artful Dodger in Oliver at the Lyric Theatre, and went on from Ballynahinch High School and Down High School to The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. Here he graduated with a first class honours degree in acting and has since been busy with gigs such as the international tour of Mamma Mia! and the UK tours of Grease and Guys and Dolls.

Stuart (33) said he was thrilled with the “rowdy and responsive” local audience reaction to The Bodyguard and delighted to see family and friends in stalls after a year working with the show for a year.

“We have been on the road since February last year and it has been packed out the whole way,” he said.

“In Belfast Alexandra and myself have been delighted that we have had an audience so involved, it has been great to see such a good response.”

Stuart said getting on with Alexandra had made life on the road that much more enjoyable, and that they quickly bonded after she took over the role of Rachel from Beverley Knight.

“We all knew she could sing, the question mark was her acting ability,” he said. “She had been offered it before but said she was going to get some acting lessons and come back.

“At all the rehearsals and technicals it was good to have that time with her to really bond. I have met her family, she has met mine. It is very clear that we are soul mates.”

Stuart said the popularity of The Bodyguard came from being a “good old fashioned love story”, involving two strong characters locking horns. However, he warns that the audience may not get everything they want.

“Can they be together? Everybody wants that happy ending but it doesn’t always quite work out like that.”