Born in Jamaica Peter Straker has been hailed as one of the great voices of the British
stage who first shot to fame in 1968 when he starred as Hud in the original London
production of ‘Hair.’ Following on to star in countless West End Theatre productions,
including Pete Townshend’s ‘Tommy’ as the narrator, Ken Hill’s ‘The Original Phantom
of the Opera’, ‘Hot Stuff’, ‘Blues in the Night’, ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, ‘The Rat Pack’,
‘One Love’ and ‘Holding On’ with Ruby Turner. His classical roles include Cassius in
‘Julius Caesar’, at Bristol Old Vic, and Lucio in ‘Measure for Measure’ at the National
Theatre.
Multi-talented, he has extended from Shakespeare to pantomime, and appeared on
television and film in diverse roles such as the pioneering cult classic film ‘Girl / Boy’ in
1972 to ‘Doctor Who’, detective series, ‘80’s melodrama ‘Connie’ with Stephanie
Beacham and Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones comedy ‘Morons in Outer Space’
More recently he reprised his role in ‘The Wiz’ with Birmingham Rep, and starred in The
Hackney Empire’s ‘Cinderella’, The Landor Theatre’s ‘The Glorious One’s’. Lately
Straker has performed in The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in a concert performance
of ‘Piaf’ with The Matthew Jones Orchestra, and his critically acclaimed one man show
‘Peter Straker’s Brel‘ returned to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013 after sold out
performances earlier that year at the St. James Theatre in London.
Latterly in a new production of ‘Tommy’ he was asked to play the role of the Acid Queen.
Prior to covid 19 lockdown he was appearing in the first English language production of
‘La Cage Aux Folles’ at the Park Theatre, London, directed by Jez Bond from a new
translation by acclaimed actor, writer and director, Simon Callow.
In addition, outside of acting and performing Peter Straker has enjoyed a notable
recording career with projects for many major record labels including The Alan Parsons
Project ‘I Robot’, Freddie Mercury’s memorable ‘Barcelona’ with Montserrat Caballé as
well as backing vocals on The Great Pretender.
Throughout his career Straker has an extensive back catalogue of recordings and solo
albums, including his highly acclaimed album from the Jacques Brel songbook “Brel”.
Furthermore, earlier this year a special deluxe x 3 CD Box Set tilted ‘This One's On Me’
was released containing Straker’s best known albums, one of which was co - produced
by Freddie Mercury with Straker’s career defining ‘This One’s On Me’ album alongside
Roy Thomas Baker - who was the celebrated producer behind Queen’s classic albums,
‘Queen’, ‘Queen II’ ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘Jazz’ and ‘A Night At The Opera’ and
‘Changeling’ which was Tim Friese-Greene’s first full album production role before his
acclaimed association with Thomas Dolby and his becoming the de facto 4th member of
Talk Talk on their critically acclaimed later albums. Last but not least Real Natural Man’.
Following this, we see the release in February of the single ‘Heart Be Still 2020’,