Show halted as star Ute Lemper collapses

WEST END star Ute Lemper had to abandon her one-woman show halfway through last night after being taken ill just three days into its run, writes Richard Allen.

The audience at the Savoy Theatre were told during the interval that the former star of Chicago could not continue with her show Naughty Baby. A Tannoy message for a doctor was then broadcast twice and a young doctor went backstage to help.

Time magazine theatre critic James Inverne was in the audience and said: "I have been told she was feeling ill from the start, but it certainly did not show. She was singing and dancing with her usual all-guns-blazing style.

Then after the interval we were told she had collapsed."

A member of the band said that after the curtain came down on the hour-long first half that Ms Lemper, 38, was lying on the stage vomiting and unable to get up. He said she had felt dizzy during a dance movement but managed to make it to the interval before collapsing.

A suspected inner ear infection was thought to be the cause of the illness.

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