Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
ALLSTAR STAGE FRIGHT!
Expect tapping, rapping – and a lot of nerves – as six new celebrities aim to show off their hidden talents on All Star Musicals AHEAD
Just imagine if you haven’t sung properly for three decades and have to try to impress some of the West End’s greatest performers. Springwatch presenter Michaela Strachan thought she had it under control when she walked on stage to belt out her number in ITV’S All Star Musicals until disaster struck and she couldn’t stop her leg shaking.
‘I didn’t realise how nervous I was,’ says Michaela. ‘Although in hindsight it’s probably not that surprising. I hadn’t sung professionally for 30 years – not since my brief foray into the world of pop music in the late 1980s/early 1990s. And this new performance involved some tap dancing, which I hadn’t done for 37 years! The shaking stopped, but I think my nerves might have affected my voice at the very start of the song.’
Michaela is one of six celebrities singing hits from shows such as Hamilton, Les Misérables and 42nd Street in a bid to impress West End greats Elaine Paige, Samantha Barks and Trevor Dion Nicholas, who act as mentors and judges. John Barrowman hosts the show, in which Michaela is up against former England rugby player Danny Care, James Bond star Colin Salmon, GMB weatherman Alex Beresford, I’m A Celebrity winner Jacqueline Jossa and Corrie’s Lisa George.
It turns out Michaela wasn’t the only competitor to suffer difficulties. Colin Salmon, who played MI6 officer Charles Robinson in the 007 movies, says, ‘My big problem was remembering the lines of my song.’
Alex Beresford hit that snag too. ‘I’d wanted to be on All Star Musicals since I first saw it in 2017 but my song contains 1,100 words, whereas some people’s only have two or three hundred,’ he says. ‘I felt a bit overwhelmed and suffered nightmares. And the rapping part of the song took me totally out of my comfort zone! It got to the point where I thought I was going to have to tell the producers, “Sorry, I just can’t perform this.” But then it started to come together.’
Nevertheless, Alex had a lastminute fright. ‘When I was beside the stage waiting to go on, I com
pletely forgot the words – and there were a lot to forget! I had to focus hard to bring them back to mind.’
The celebrities had two months to get themselves up to speed, with time split betweeen solo practice and mentoring sessions. ‘Preparations coincided with the most recent series of Autumnwatch,’ says Michaela. ‘So I’d start my morning by practising tap dancing in a barn at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk, where the series was being filmed. I’d put the song I was going to be performing on full blast and tap away, before the Autumnwatch morning meeting. There were two security guards there and they must have thought, “She’s quirky!”’
All Star Musicals is on tomorrow at 7.30pm on ITV.