A HUDDERSFIELD man is playing Prince William in a West End show.
John Sheerman – son of Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman – takes on the lead role in the Prisoner of Windsor, a satire about last month’s Royal Wedding.
The play premieres at Leicester Square Theatre tonight.
The Prisoner of Windsor is a satire of Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech.
John plays Prince William, who flees the country because he’s unable to cope with his secret vocal coaching sessions.
Satirist Justin Butcher wrote The Prisoner of Windsor, which includes references to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
John, 31, has been a keen actor since his early days at Brighouse High School and Greenhead College.
Proud dad Barry Sheerman said yesterday: “When you have a son who’s an actor you don’t know what he’s going to do next.
“I’ve seen him playing a Conservative MP and the Prime Minister of Canada and now he’s going to be Prince William.
“It’s lovely to see him practising his craft.”
Mr Sheerman added that there were some similarities between his career and his son’s.
“To be an MP you have to have a bit of acting ability,” he said.
John was born in 1979 – the same year that his father was elected as Labour MP for Huddersfield East.
He grew up in Brighouse and attended the Calderdale Children’s Theatre alongside Laura Crane, who died of cancer aged just 17 in 1996.
Barry Sheerman said: “John was very keen on acting, he was always in school plays.
“When he went to Bristol University it was supposedly to study politics and social policy, but he ended up acting and directing 27 plays.”
In 2008 John put on a one-off performance of Me and My Girl in memory of Examiner reporter Adrian Sudbury, who died of leukaemia earlier that year.
The West End event raised more than £20,000 for the Anthony Nolan Trust.
