Ed Sheeran swapped the stage at the Stadium of Light for a seat in the nearby Sunderland Empire at the weekend to go and see a performance of Chicago before the second of his two sold out gigs.
The Stadium of Light was packed to the rafters on both Friday and Saturday night as Brit winner Ed delighted fans on his Mathematics tour. Friday night's opening concert posted the highest audience ever for a gig in the North East as 60,000 fans flocked to see the man who has given us modern classics like The A Team, Thinking Out Loud and Castle on the Hill.
But, while he was very much a man in demand on Wearside, Ed did managed to find the time to go and see the cast of Chicago just down the road as they performed their second to last show of their run at the Empire. The show had been in the headlines in the lead up to its Sunderland stir, thanks to Gemma Collins being cast in the iconic role of Mama Morton, before pulling out of the whole tour due to injury, just a week before her scheduled debut.
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She was replaced at the eleventh hour by Loose Women panellist and West End star Brenda Edwards, who thankfully had played Mama before, given she had very little time to prepare to return to Chicago. And it was Brenda who shared photos of music megastar Ed on stage with her and the musical's cast and crew after he'd enjoyed the show and its famous song like All That Jazz and Cell Block Tango.
Sharing the photos on her Twitter timeline, Brenda wrote: "Thank you @edsheeran for coming to see us
@chicagoonstage this afternoon, I’m so glad you could make it in between your own mad schedule love you babe see you again soon."
After seeing Chicago, Ed hot footed it back to the Stadium of Light to entertain a packed house for the second night in a row, before heading to London to perform Perfect at the Queen's Jubilee Pageant, right before she made an emotional appearance on Buckingham Palace's balcony to round off a memorable weekend.
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