HE’S one of Geelong’s most talented sons, a star of stage and screen, a first-order acrobat and tumbler, and pretty handy with a whip as well.
For the past three years, Leigh Sleightholme has been belting out an international song and dance routine, complete with ripper harmonies, with Boys in the Band — wowing audiences worldwide with their Jersey Boys meets Human Nature format.
He’s performed with the hit show We Will Rock You, taking on rock giant Queen’s hits, in Japan – plus Wicked: The Musical with Japan’s Universal Studios. He’s been in the Australian production of Disney’s High School Musical, the Aussie tour of Mama Mia!, major musical productions such as Priscilla Queen of the Desert, worked at Warner Brothers Movie World and in productions of Storm at Conrad Jupiters and The Man From Snowy River with David Atkins.
“I’m 28 years old but I feel older because I was on stage right from the start,” he laughs.
“Mum always says she’d be rehearsing at the Italian Social Club when she was pregnant with me and had to stop because I’d be dancing too much in her belly. I actually started on stage when I was only three years old.”
Mum is Geelong dancing fixture Sharon Sleightholme, whose light fantastic-tripping genetics assured her son a career treading the boards. That and vocal training with the redoubtable Maggie Britton and extensive training in acrobatics.
Sleightholme’s Geelong genetics emanate from leafy Newtown where he went to Fyans Park Primary as a kid. He spent much of his childhood banging around the Barwon River, around Balyang Sanctuary. His earliest stage performances were at Bay City Plaza, forerunner of today’s Westfield, Market Square, GPAC and Eastern Beach.
“Geelong holds very special memories for me,” he says.
“I used to love Eastern Beach, playing with friends and family as a kid, sliding down the hills.
“Mum and I have planks on the boardwalk there and I like to go visit there whenever I can. Eastern Beach is very big for me.”
But Sleightholme calls New South Wales’ Emerald City home these days after leaving Geelong and after spending several years on the Gold Coast too, where he went to secondary school before working his way into the entertainment game as a 16-year-old in a country and western show at Warner Brothers MovieWorld.
He was there for four years — hence the whipcracking – and made his musical theatre debut in 2005, in the Queen show. The move to Sydney suited work and his career has burgeoned.
“Sydney is the best thing,” he says. “I just love its kind of metro lifestyle, I moved here for the work and I’m always busy.”
Boys in the Band has been his gig since 2011, among other cabaret and performance work, and its combination of high energy, choreography and challenging musical arrangements – with three other equally talented blokes – keeps him flat out.
Billed as the feel good show of the year, BITB trips through 50 years of the best songs from performers such as Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, The Beatles, Bee Gees, Jackson Five, Righteous Brothers, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Take That and Backstreet Boys.
It’s been dubbed the lovechild of Human Nature and the Jersey Boys. Sleightholme finds it, and the collaboration with his fellow performers, an extraordinary artistic outlet.
“It’s a fair workout, absolutely” he laughs.
“It’s a full-on singing and dancing show. For me, the main part is the vocals, and having to sing medleys.
“Instead of a regular 20 or songs, we’re singing 50, 60, even 70 songs in one night — that regime two hours straight and no break requires a lot of physical stamina. It’s all live and no room for mistakes.”
— NOEL MURPHY
