Entertainment Charity Launches Celebratory West End Eurovision 2012 Event

Entertainment industry charity 'The Make A Difference Trust' held an event at The Edge In London's Soho Square, sponsored by 'I Am SOHO' and hosted by Heart FM's Toby Anstis, to launch their much anticipated show, 'West End Eurovision 2012'.

West End Eurovision, now in its 5th year, sees 12 West End casts, including such shows as Legally Blonde, Phantom of the Opera, War Horse and Les Miserables, produce fully costumed, choreographed versions of a past Eurovision Song Contest entry. This iconic show was nominated in the top 5 "Theatrical Events of the year 2011" category in the recent BroadwayWorld.com Awards.

This year TheatreMAD, one of the charity's producing brands, is proud to see the show transfer to one of the West End's best loved venues, the Dominion Theatre, home for the last 10 years to the sell-out show, We Will Rock You. Last year saw involvement from celebrities such as Graham Norton, Sheridan Smith, Toby Anstis, Justin Lee Collins and Gaby Roslin to name a few. This year will see yet more celebs turn out in force to support The Make A Difference Trust. Tickets sold out very quickly last year so an early booking is recommended. Tickets are available through www.madtrust.org.uk, by phone on 0844 847 2510, or in person at the Dominion Theatre box office on Tottenham Court Road, W1.

Currently celebrating its 21st year The Make A Difference Trust has decided to mark the launch of West End Eurovision, by making £100,000 available in grants to small grass roots, community based charities who are trying to provide urgent and essential services at an extremely difficult economic time. Small charities, (which must show some link to the arts through any one of the charities sub brands: Theatre, Music, Dance, Film or Fashion) will be able to apply for a small cash injection of between £3,000 and £5,000 to help them along.

Steven Inman, the Charity's Director, said "Some people may not think £5,000 is a lot of money to give to an organisation, but in the current climate it can pay for a day centres winter fuel bills, rising transport costs to challenge isolation or extra hardship and welfare supports for those individuals living with chronic ill health and struggling to manage day to day costs. The Trust gives out many other larger grants during the year, but the trustees felt that in addition, in our 21st year, this was a good time to make a small but essential difference to some of the many excellent community charities out there struggling to make their own difference".

Charities wishing to apply for one of these grants should meet a couple of basic criterion and be able to clearly demonstrate the difference an extra shot in the arm can make to the individuals and communities they support.

For application information, interested charities should write in the first instance to s.inman@madtrust.org.uk.

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