Watch Luke Evans Channel Pavarotti As He Gets Raves for Campy, West End Hit

As he co-stars in the new West End hit "Backstairs Billy," Luke Evans took a moment for a Pavarotti homage... in his underwear, no less.

On Instagram, the out, 44-year old-Welch actor celebrated Saturday by singing the climax to "Nesse Dorma," the Puccini aria from "Turandot" that Pavarotti made famous in the 1980s. While he may lack a bit of polish, Evans nails the rangy aria, ending it on a spectacular note. And his singing in his underwear is a bonus.

The post comes as Evans opened in "Backstage Billy," the new comedy by Marcelo Dos Santos that chronicles the relationship between the Queen Mother (Penelope Wilton) and her servant Billy (Evans). The production is scheduled to run through January 27, 2024 at the Duke of York's Theatre. The production is directed by Michael Grandage. (For more information, follow this link.

"The play is set in 1979 Britain as strikes are bringing the country to its knees and things are about to seismically change under Margaret Thatcher, but it's still business as usual for the Queen Mother and her loyal servant Billy. Two worlds are beginning to collide with dizzying consequences," writes Playbill.

The play opened to the critics last week and they were favorable to both the play and its two stars: Wilton, best-known for "Downton Abby," and Evans, (most recently Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers"). It was in London's West End that Evans had his start, appearing in the musicals "Rent," "Miss Saigon," "Taboo," and "Avenue Q."

At Broadway World, Laura Jones writes: "Michael Grandage's production allows Wilton to showcase her impeccable comedic style and she delivers her lines with precision and wit. Each joke lands with the audience and she brilliantly humanises the Queen Mother. Wilton and Evans are a delightful duo, bouncing off each other effortlessly...

"Evans is wonderful as the flamboyant and mischievous Page of the Backstairs. Although there are moments where the audience are aghast at the way he takes advantage of his position and the relationship he has with the Queen Mother, Evans's Billy exudes charm, able to quickly win them back over."

In The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish writes: "Abounding with witty entertainment and curiosity value, augmented by scene-stealing appearances from two real-life corgis, it confirms the promise shown by Marcelo Dos Santos... Luke Evans – tall, dashing, finely attired – exerts a queenly command himself as he fusses over the staff's positioning of ornamental flowers and directs the traffic of a typical social encounter between the QM and a gaggle of ghastlies: a double-barrelled Rotarian/WI couple from Hertfordshire and a clueless TV starlet, plying them with spirits to accelerate the conviviality... Out of the blue, a footnote from history has become the perfect theatrical winter warmer."

In Time Out, Tom Wicker says: "There's something gleefully subversive about Dos Santos's script and Grandage's bouncy production, which makes it compelling. It's harder-edged than the simple, 'joyful comedy' about an odd-couple friendship that it's promoted as in the accompanying blurb. Sure, at one level, it does what you might expect from the glut of royal rehabilitation stories we've seen on TV and film. It has some great one-liners, gives us a roll call of colourfully eccentric or over-privileged people to laugh at... and there are actual corgis...

"As Billy, Evans is archly funny; a Royal Family devotee who has hollowed out his own life in service. He relishes his confrontations with the malevolent Mr Kerr (Ian Drysdale), who has come to rein in Clarence House's expenditure. But in Evans's gait is the showiness of a peacock who doesn't know its wings have been clipped – a brittleness that shows he needs the rarified air of the fantasy of royal life as much as the Queen Mother but has none of her security"

And at The Arts Desk, Matt Wolf was ecstatic about Evans' performance. "The performances could not be better. I last saw Evans on this same stage in 'Rent Remixed,' but nothing in my experience of him so far suggested the layers of feeling that he brings to this sleekly coiffed purveyor of bravado whose ego gets rather dramatically punctured. Time away from theatre may have made Evans a film name, but seems also to have amplified his connection to the stage."