Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

A royal meet-and-greet: ‘ENTSpeaks’ producer Andy Walmsley and Queen Elizabeth II

Andy Walmsley-Queen Elizabeth II

Courtesy of Andy Walmsley

Andy Walmsley, an Emmy Award-winning set designer and founder and producer of the “ENTSpeaks” entertainers’ speaker series in Las Vegas, is shown meeting Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Command Performance in the Dominion Theater in London’s West End in 1995. Walmsley was the production designer of that production and also worked on the show in 1997 and 1999. To his right is British lighting designer Brian Pearce.

Click to enlarge photo

Andy Walmsley’s “ENTSpeaks: Entertainers You Think You Know” on Feb. 2, 2015, at Inspire Theater in downtown Las Vegas.

Ever have one of those text exchanges where a friend and you are playing “top this,” and you suddenly receive a photo of your friend shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II?

No?

It happens. A couple of weeks ago, I was in such an exchange with Andy Walmsley, an Emmy Award-winning set designer, founder and producer of the “ENTSpeaks” speaker series who also is ardently British. We were sending photos back and forth of those we had happened to be positioned next to; these figures ranged from Eugene Levy to Al Pacino. Walmsley hit me back with a photo of the Queen Mum gripping the hands of someone who looked like Andy’s own son.

But it was Walmsley, and it is not such an unusual photo. Walmsley worked on five Royal Command Variety Performance shows in the 1990s, first as an assistant designer to famous set designer Bill McPhearson and later as the show’s production designer. That’s a position closer to the actual producer and affords a meeting with the queen on the night of the event.

The 1995 show was the first of two meetings between Walmsley (the King of the Set of the Sands Showroom) and Elizabeth II (the Queen of the United Kingdom).

“I was so nervous that I stuck my hand out and spoke to her first despite being briefed to only address her if she speaks to you,” Walmsley remembers. "I was the first she spoke to, and she was standing directly opposite me only five feet away.”

Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton-John performed at that show at Dominion Theater in London’s West End. They were in line when Walmsley met the Queen.

“That made it all the more nerve-wracking because I had a major crush on Olivia after ‘Grease,’ ” Walmsley said.

Walmsley has since moved to Las Vegas, having lived in the city since 2001 and has been one of the key figures in the Strip entertainment scene as the designer of many stage sets of many major productions. Along with Sands Showroom, he has worked on shows starring Jeff Civillico at Linq Showroom, Terry Fator at his own theater in the Mirage and Frank Marino of “Divas Las Vegas,” also at Linq. He won his Emmy for the design of the “American Idol” set.

In the fall of last year, Walmsley conceived the concept of “ENTSpeaks,” drawing largely from the Ted Talks speaker series. The second installment is set for 9 p.m. Feb. 2 at Inspire Theater on Fremont East (the corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, where that sketchy 7-Eleven once stood). The speakers: Ubiquitous Robin Leach, “Frank: The Man, The Music” star Bob Anderson, “Fantasy” at Luxor producer Anita Mann, “Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers” vocalist Nicole Kaplan, Harrah’s comic magician Mac King and Smith Center President Myron Martin. A post-show party, often rivaling the stage presentation for entertainment value, is set for 11 p.m.

Walmsley’s idea has been to draw a collection of Las Vegas royalty for a recurring event and night on the town. He lived that in Britain, and it’s a concept that works in VegasVille, too.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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