MUSICAL theatre star Elaine Paige said "farewell" to a full touring schedule with her 2014 solo travels to mark her 50-year singing career. Two years later, she nevertheless will mount a 20-date series of weekend concerts from October to December, taking in Scarborough and Leeds.

Her Stripped Back shows will see Elaine perform her favourite tracks from an array of contemporary songwriters with a small group of musicians, visiting Scarborough Spa on Sunday, November 20 and Leeds Grand Theatre on Sunday, December 11, rescheduled from the initially announced November 4.

"I'm so excited about this series of 'weekend' concerts," said 68-year-old Elaine. "Having made the decision not to do a back-to-back tour again, this appealed to me not only because of the schedule, but as I've marked my 50 years on stage, this is going to allow me to do something completely different too.

"It's a brand new show celebrating the contemporary songwriters I love, such as Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, Leonard Cohen, Sting, Elton John, Lennon & McCartney...the list goes on.

"Their music has been the soundtrack to all our lives, not just mine. And it's the ideal opportunity to perform in an intimate way; I recently played the Royal Albert Hall with the 60-piece BBC Concert Orchestra; I'm doing these new shows 'Stripped Back'!"

Elaine has performed concerts all over the world and has recorded with producers such as Tony Visconti, Dennis Lambert, Peter Matz and Phil Ramone, releasing 22 solo albums, four of them going multi-platinum, nine achieving gold-selling status. She has featured on seven cast recordings too, achieving worldwide hits with Memory from Cats and I Know Him So Well from Chess, while starring in West End and Broadway musical productions.

Her BBC Radio 2 show, Elaine Paige On Sunday, draws more than 2.5 million listeners each week with its focus on musical theatre and film music, news and interviews.

Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday at gigst.rs/EPaige, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk or on 0844 811 0051 and 0844 826 2826.