Over The Rainbow: Week Eight
Published on Tuesday 18th May, 1.38pm, Written by Mike Shaw
It’s the beginning of the end. Just four girls left, and the wrong one went. Sigh.
The show began with all four remaining Dorothys doing Together Wherever We Go from Gypsy, and it really wasn’t bad. They were all spot on and had tons of energy.
Somewhat implausibly, Sophie Evans could still be Dorothy
Back on stage, Sophie sang the relatively little-known Reflections from Mulan, and delivered her best vocal so far. Week in, week out, Charlotte goes on about the “lovely tone” to Sophie’s voice, and this week it was completely obvious to the viewing public. Sophie sang beautifully and gave the performance more emotion than we’ve seen at any other point. Of course, that’s still not all that much, but progress is progress.
Far from having an equally obscure song, Steph had Rule The World, arguably Take That’s best song, and one that everyone knows thanks to its ubiquitous use as backing music to every inspirational scene on every TV show for the last two years. Fortunately for Sophie, Steph gave a strangely pedestrian performance, lacking the spark we’ve seen from her in other weeks.
Interesting note: partway through Steph’s performance, I stopped seeing a would-be Dorothy and found myself looking at Elphaba from Wicked. I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s just the whole package – but at the moment, I would merrily bet my collection of Fiendish Feet yoghurt pots that she will be starring in Wicked in the next few years.
Next up. Lauren and Danielle, and again we see them at home before they get to sing. Lauren goes and sees her granddad, who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks so has never seen her perform before, while Danielle goes to a variety of shops in her hometown and coos at all the “Vote Danielle” posters displayed in windows. Again, it’s all painfully dull – so much so, in fact, that later on Sheila Hancock finally cracks and says: “I don’t care whether they’ve got nice grandparents, it’s what they’ve been doing up there [that counts].”
See The Wizard of Oz!
Back in the studio, Lauren‘s up first, singing Heaven. As is standard, she belts it out beautifully, and chooses to act out each line in the most literal way possible.
Danielle follows with X Factor/American Idol staple, When You Believe, which is alright I spose. Nothing special, but decent enough to keep her safe.
In the aforementioned rival talent shows, when they get down to just a few contestants, then they sing a couple of songs each. Not so in Over The Rainbow, where they decide to pad out the remaining time with a variety of bits of tat: chatty bits with the contestants, chatty bits with the judges, pointless lumps of VT, trailers for the pointless lumps of VT, and general vamping by Norton et al.
After a load of nonsense designed to pad out the 60 minute running time (chatty bits with the contestants, chatty bits with the judges, pointless lumps of VT, trailers for the pointless lumps of VT…) we are treated to a pair of duets.
Sophie and Steph are first up with I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair from South Pacific, which was hideous. Their vocals were fine, but they acted the whole thing like a couple of bunny boilers and the staging and choreography was embarrassing to watch. Heaven knows how silly the poor girls felt.
It couldn’t have been more different for Lauren and Danielle, who performed Popular from Wicked. Tackling anything from Wicked is always a risk – not because the songs are hard to sing, but because of the superfans – however (and I know there are going to be comments) I really, really liked their performance. The staging was simple, the vocals were spot-on and they both appeared to be having a lot of fun. Unfortunately for Lauren, having the two side by side cast a harsh light on the gulf between their acting styles. Danielle’s natural approach and genuine likeability meant that in this head-to-head, she was better than the overstated Lauren.
Other stuff happened on Saturday – an accent class which was skimmed over (they all did alright), a group performance of I Cain’t Say No from Oklahoma!, (they all did alright), but it was all just a prelude to Sunday’s results show.
On Sunday, Graham looked relatively normal. Yes, his shirt and jacket were both disgusting colours, but they didn’t clash too badly and the garish waistcoat was missing altogether. Perhaps in between filming the shows the mad, blind woman with Velcro hands who usually dresses him couldn’t get into the studio because her knuckles got stuck to the side of a particularly large dog (perhaps a St Bernard, or maybe an Alsatian with glandular problems). Either way, Norton looked sort of normal, and I was momentarily left with no one to mock.
This frankly unnatural state of affairs didn’t last long though because we were swiftly flung headfirst into the first pile of Toto-based footage.
A quick, completely unscientific poll on Twitter revealed that only about two per cent of viewers actually give a rats ass about picking a dog. A dog – lest we forget – that is only going to appear in ONE performance. Is all this attention really necessary? Instead of all this filler, why not just cut the show down to 30 minutes?
Among the other nonsense padding out the show is something about live events that have let people meet and sing with the reject Dorothys and some chatter from the remaining girls about how much they want it and being in The Wizard of Oz will be, like, the biggest thing to happen in their lives EVER. We’re then treated to Love Never Dies the musical star Sierra Boggess meeting with the contestants, giving them words of wisdom and then appearing onstage to sing the title song of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to Phantom.
After even more Toto, and a bit more chat, it was time for the results, and this week’s bottom two were Steph and Lauren. After the waves of praise that had washed over Lauren on Saturday night, Steph immediately knew that she was a goner, and the tiny bit of sparkliness that was there previously was completely absent as they sang Another Suitcase In Another Hall from Evita.
ALW wasted no time in delivering the bad news, but Steph took it well and handled herself with great dignity, giving her all as she sang Over The Rainbow and soared over the stage upon a cheap MDF crescent moon.
So now we are three, and of the remaining girls, only one can realistically pull off Dorothy.
Sophie is sweet and all, but she’s not Dorothy. She doesn’t have the stage presence or the acting ability. Her sweet vocals may be best suited to the young girl, but that’s about it.
Meanwhile, Lauren is all sorts of wrong. Singing is all she’s got, everything else is off the mark, and her fanclub can argue all they want, but the public don’t like her.
That leaves us with Danielle. In early episodes she was simply ‘one of the brunette ones’ but solid performances each week, backed by impressive acting, marked her out as, first of all a dark horse, but then rapidly she became the frontrunner.
The show ends this weekend, so join me for the last ever Over The Rainbow live tweet at www.twitter.com/westendupdates. There are two shows on Saturday night, with the first starting at 7pm on BBC One, then the grand final is on at 8.55pm.
Oooooh – exciting!
Mike – I think I enjoy your reviews even more than the show.
I don’t think any of them are Dorothy. I agree entirely with your comments about Sophie and Lauren, but just don’t like Danielle – for all her supposed acting ability (which really I’ve only seen in one song so far) her range is poor and I can’t see her as a leading lady. Maybe in a few years, but not now.
Verdict: bring back the 9 Dorothys who didn’t make it through to the live shows and let’s see if any of them make a better stab at it!
steph is my favoroute dorothy i’m a big fan.