Aoife solves Sir Tim’s problem 

She was not even born at the time of their last collaboration, but now actress Aoife Mulholland has combined the talents of the most successful partnership in musical theatre — lyricist Sir Tim Rice and composer Lord (Andrew) Lloyd-Webber — 30 years after their last alliance.

For after she was "found" by Lloyd Webber on his BBC series, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Aoife, 29, has been cast by Rice in the revival of his musical Chess at the Royal Albert Hall.

Currently the alternate Maria in The Sound Of Music at the London Palladium, Aoife will join a chorus of six for two performances of the opus Rice wrote with Benny and Bjorn from Abba.

"I saw an amateur production of Chess about ten years ago and fell in love with the music," says Ireland-born Aoife. "I’m a big fan of Abba and Tim Rice. I’m lucky to be working with them."

Hopefully, the revival will be more successful than Rice’s last attempt to stage Chess on Broadway, which went so expensively wrong that he described it as "a cock-up of cataclysmic proportions".

Richard Kay column – article and picture of Aoife appear about halfway down