Beverley Knight

No stranger to the spotlight, Beverley can do it all. An Olivier award-winning star of the West End stage, a Saturday night TV regular on the latest series of Starstruck, and an astounding singer with a prolific music career. She finds herself aged 50, bigger than ever. Crowning her 50th birthday celebrations in style, the undoubted Queen of British Soul, Beverley Knight, releases a new studio album, The Fifth Chapter on September 29th on Tag8/BMG and has already sold out her biggest ever tour of the UK this autumn. Partnering with a wealth of songwriting talent, Beverley’s first collection of new music in seven years is a spectacular journey through the inspirations that have defined her incredible career.

Beverley explains: “My new album covers the kaleidoscope of my Soul influences from Disco, R&B, Funk, Gospel, through to northern Soul and Big Ballades with the album’s first single, Last One on My Mind." It offers a slice of stunning contemporary Soul-Pop as she explains it as being “a sassy no-nonsense but joyous sounding song with a big nod to modern Disco” which instantly became Radio 2 Record of the Week. Closely followed by her second track and another style departure, the colourful, kaleidoscopic-sounding modern Pop song Systematic Overload, which also is already all over the airwaves warming everyone up in anticipation of her new album’s release. Beverley has had several Top 10 albums and sold over a million albums in the UK, with four gold-certified. Her most recent studio album, Soulsville, went straight into the UK Top 10. 

In recent years, Wolverhampton-born Knight has forged a formidable parallel career in theatre too. Her West End debut was the starring role in The Bodyguard followed by leading the Tony award-winning Memphis The Musical. At the request of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, she joined the cast of Cats, playing the iconic role of Grizabella. In 2021, Beverley played lead in The Drifters Girl at the Garrick Theatre, as the formidable manager of the soul group, The Drifters, which was Olivier nominated for Best New Musical and Best Actress. Starring to huge acclaim as Emmeline Pankhurst in Sylvia at The Old Vic, Beverley won Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical at the Olivier Awards in April. The show also received nominations for Best New Musical and Best Choreographer. 

Beverley was also recently on screen Saturday nights as a panel judge in ITV’s talent series, Starstruck. Broadcasting work beyond this hit show includes presenting four series of Radio 2 show, Beverley’s Gospel Nights, and two series of the BBC1 show, Just the Two of Us. She recently appeared in the all-star cast of Amazon’s new live-action movie, Cinderella (2021), with Camilla Cabello in the title role. A British treasure, Beverley was awarded an MBE in 2007 for services to British music and charity, has won three MOBO Awards, been nominated for Best Female at the Brit Awards three times, Best Actress at the Olivier Awards twice, and Best Female at the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.