Hilary O'Neil

After leaving school, Hilary spent three years at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom, Surrey, training as a dancer. To this day, she says it’s without a doubt the best college for musical theatre training anywhere in the UK, and remains indebted to Betty Laine. In fact, Laine offered Hilary her first professional job as a dancer on the Ken Dodd Summer Show at the Opera House, Blackpool, followed by a season at the London Palladium.

Shortly afterwards, Hilary became a singer and founder member of The Stutz Bearcats, appearing on many television shows.

Hilary has always had a love of comedy and constantly watched other acts performing early in her career. One of whom became a huge influence in her life, was the late, great, Marti Caine. Caine had a wonderful act, combining comedy and music with glamour. Thanks to her, Hilary says she has able to achieve her ambitions.

Hilary’s act has taken her to Australia and New Zealand, on tour with Hale & Pace, Portugal, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Italy, Germany, the Caribbean, all over the Med, Belize and even the Falklands!

However, Hilary’s big break came when she appeared on the LWT series, Copy Cats, for ITV. Her other television appearances include, The Royal Command Performance, Des O'Connor Tonight, Summertime Special, Night of 100 Stars, Live from the Palladium, Celebrity Squares, Call My Bluff, two series starring Freddie Starr, 3-2-1!, Who Do You Do?, Talking Telephone Numbers, and many more! All were great experiences, but Hilary believes the best was appearing on Copy Cats. The quick changes backstage with make-up and wigs were hilarious and by all accounts would have been worthy of a separate television show all of their own!

In the UK, Hilary has supported comedy performers including Jim Davidson, Joe Pasquale, Freddie Starr, Joe Longthorne, Richard Digance, Hale & Pace, Bobby Davro and Brian Conley.

Hilary’s West End appearances include That's Showbiz (Phoenix Theatre), the Marx Brothers’ comedy, Animal Crackers (Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue) and Summer Holiday (Apollo, Hammersmith, and UK Tour). She also appeared in the award-winning 60's comedy musical, Shout!, at the Jermyn Street Theatre, where she later returned to appear in her one-woman show, which was part of their Summer Diva cabaret season.

Hilary’s career also encompasses radio credits. She has wonderful memories of being part of the Radio 2 series, The Impressionists. Hilary recalls that they never stopped laughing when they recorded the shows at the much-missed BBC Paris Studio in Lower Regent Street, London.

In addition, her radio credits include co-presenting with Sandi Toksvig on her popular LBC 97.3 radio show.

Hilary regularly works hard to entertain audiences aboard cruise ships. Hilary once quipped, “You're paid to see the world and when you wake up each morning, someone's changed the scenery. Not a bad life - if you dodge the odd force 10!”

Hilary continues to delight audiences with her annual panto appearances. Indeed, last year she could be spotted helping to ‘set-up’ her friend and one of the countries’ favourite television presenters, Stephen Mulhearn, during one such pantomime performance for ITV’s Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Take-Away.

Summer at the Musicals will be the second show that Hilary has hosted for Paul Burton productions. Previously, she hosted Sunday at the Musicals at The Hippodrome Casino in the heart of London’s West End. The concert was produced by Paul Burton, and directed by Carole Todd.