Over The Rainbow Guest Performances, Any Good?
Published on Wednesday 19th May, 8.57am, Written by Carrie Dunn
As another series of fierce talent-searching draws to an end, let’s take a look at the West End shows that were put in the shop window during Over The Rainbow and how well they advertised themselves…
When is St. Sheila going to get up on stage and give us a turn?
Sweet Charity: What with Tamzin Outhwaite doing a leading-lady masterclass as well as a bronchitis-ridden performance of If My Friends Could See Me Now, and Andrew Lloyd Webber enthusing about her talent (like she was some kind of Dorothy contender who needed an ego boost), the Chocolate Factory transfer did best of all.
Legally Blonde the Musical: Sheridan Smith is always good value for money, and was perfectly lovely to her masterclass pupils, after fretting: “I’m excited to meet them! I hope they’re excited to meet me. They might be like, ‘Oh. It’s HER.’” Amy Lennox (Margot) also made a special guest appearance leading a masterclass, but hers was for the Totos rather than the girls.
Love Never Dies the musical: Sierra Boggess got roped in at the weekend to enthuse about how great it is to work in musical theatre (after Outhwaite had depressed everybody with telling them the truth about how exhausting and repetitive it can get leading a show eight times a week), and then performed the title number from the Phantom sequel. Why they insist on using that shrieky number as a showcase I don’t understand, because it’s really not the best advertisement for what’s generally a complex and beautiful score.
Wicked the musical: You’d have thought we’d have heard more about Wicked bearing in mind its Wizard Of Oz links, but despite an appearance from Kerry Ellis there’s been few Oz references. Danielle and Lauren pulled off Popular as a duet, though, and the entire group sang Defying Gravity as an opening number, proving that it should never be performed by an ensemble.
Chicago: A bunch of girls vying for the role of a 12-year-old girl shouldn’t really be performing numbers from a show set in a sordid, murky, sexy underworld, but they did so anyway under the tutelage of Dame Ruthie Henshall, who was as awesome as always.
Oliver!: Jodie Prenger, the winner of I’d Do Anything, has been a fixture over the course of the series, but for her expertise on the cuteness of dogs rather than her vocals. She did get to sing once, performing As Long As He Needs Me the weekend she left the cast, but her triumph two years ago has been weirdly overlooked otherwise.
Sister Act: Similarly, judge Sheila Hancock is still playing the Mother Superior in the show that has to move out so that The Wizard Of Oz can move in, but they’ve not yet dragged in Patina Miller and the girls to demonstrate just what it is that Hancock’s day job entails. Maybe this weekend?
