Who's Who
Deborah was born and raised in Hull, (someone has to be!) At the age of sixteen she was awarded a full scholarship to attend the three year Musical Theatre course at Laine Theatre Arts in Surrey. There she gained ISTD teaching qualifications in Ballet and Modern and a Lamda Licentiate in Acting. Whilst being at “Laines” at the same time as Victoria Beckham, and Footballers’ Wives Star Ben Richards, Deborah was the only person in her year to pass the college’s Musical Theatre diploma with Honours, also winning the college’s Drama award and the most achieved award.. Upon leaving college she worked for a contemporary dance company, and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival , before touring Alaska, Mexico, and the Caribbean, for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. She met Paul while playing Cinderella in Pantomime in her home town of Hull in 1994, She has since played principal girl and Fairy in York, Mansfield, Doncaster, and Newcastle. Throughout the late nineties Deborah and Paul produced two of their own shows which toured the UK, and worked for P&O cruises on board Oriana, Victoria, Arcadia, and the famous Canberra. Despite becoming a Corporate Presenter for three years for Barclaycard. Deborah’s first love has always been Musical Theatre, and she is delighted to now be able to pass on her wealth of useless trivia on the subject to her students!
Before forming Rainbow Connection Paul travelled the world (several times) as a Musical Director. Starting at the bottom around the workingmen’s clubs at the age of 13, Paul quickly discovered that music was to be the only career option of interest and was away on a Summer season immediately after leaving school. From then Paul has been Production MD on over 150 Pantomimes, writing, recording and directing the music for up to 10 shows at a time. Paul has performed on the world’s leading concert stages from the Royal Albert Hall to Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto and most of the UK’s theatre’s including playing The London Palladium for six weeks in Ken Dodd’s record breaking season in 1990. Throughout the 1980’s & 90’s Paul toured extensively with artists such as Ken Dodd, Bob Monkhouse, Ronnie Corbett, Sacha Diestel, Beverley Craven, Dave Willetts and in musicals including Scrooge, Gypsy, Saturday Night Fever, La Cage Aux Folles. Paul spent three years onboard P&O cruise liners as Bandmaster (a fancy title for Musical Director). Paul diversified into recording during the 1990’s and produced the music for Butlins, Warner and Haven shows across the whole of the UK alongside Air Tours, Saga & Thomson cruise lines. Paul’s musical influences are Frank Sinatra (as everyone knows), Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson, Bill Evans and The Who amongst many others.