MALTON'S West End singer and now producer Scott Garnham spent his 33rd birthday in the air on two long-haul flights but for the best of reasons.

Scott, who cut his theatrical teeth in Ryedale Youth Theatre and at Kirkham Henry Performing Arts, was flying back from Melbourne, Australia after performing in The Barricade Boys, the musical theatre concert show he created and devised featuring "myself and three other guys who’ve all appeared in Les Miserables", either in the West End, on Broadway, on the international tour or in the Hollywood film.

"The show has done unbelievably well with a sold-out three-week West End residency over Christmas that we were invited to do at Lord Lloyd-Webber's new theatre, The Other Palace, and even an appearance on Broadway at the James Theatre.

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Scott Garnham, left, and business partner Simon Schofield

"We sang at the Really Useful Group's Christmas Party and on ITV's This Morning, and now we're hitting the road for eight dates on our premiere UK tour," says Scott, who brings The Barricade Boys to the Grand Opera House, York, on Wednesday night. "It's the first time I’ve done something of this scale in York that I've been involved with as a producer, so that's really exciting."

Scott runs The Barricade Boys with business partner and fellow Les Miserables alumnus Simon Schofield. "I'd first had the idea about six years ago now when I was in Les Miserables as the songs have such wide appeal, and when you're waiting for calls from casting directors, I thought, 'in the gaps we could do this show'," he recalls.

"We did our first performance at the Charing Cross Theatre, just off The Strand as a one-off in July 2015, and eight months later we got a contract with the Norwegian Cruise Line, initially to do two-week residencies with two different 45-minute shows. Now we have bookings with eight different cruise lines."

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"We get to sing songs we've always wanted to do but never had the chance," says The Barricade Boys' Scott Garnham

Scott established a format involving "doing a lot of songs from Les Miserables but purposefully doing our own versions". "So we do a swing arrangement of Master Of The House; One Day More is sung in a more soulful way and I Dreamed A Dream is now like a big power ballad by a boy band!" he says.

"On top of that we get to sing songs we've always wanted to do but never had the chance, like Northern Soul and pop songs, finding a different way to do them."

Coming next, after signing with an American manager, will be will be a USA tour of one-nighters in April, taking in New York and Florida. First comes York, however, where fellow Ryedale musical performer Lauren Hood and a choir of 40 singers from Kirkham Henry Performing Arts Centre will be Scott's special guests. "That's important to me as Kirkham Henry is where I started," he says.

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Lauren Hood: special guest singer at Wednesday's concert

The Barricade Boys, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, March 14, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york