HARIBO TIMES I SHARED WITH GERI SPICE
I T’S the oddest new tea-time talent show to hit Saturday nights.
But nothing on BBC One’s latest sing-a-thon All Together Now can match the mental image of ex-Spice Girl Geri Horner and Lady Gaga sharing a bag of Haribo once the cameras stopped rolling.
Not the real Lady Gaga, mind you, the Welsh one – aka awardwinning tribute act Donna Marie Trego from Dinas Powys – who, along with “the artist formerly known as” Ginger Spice, appears on the show as part of a 100-strong judging panel, chosen to put upand-coming vocalists through their paces.
“Geri was seated just down from me on the same row,” says Donna of the six-part series.
“And every day, before filming started, she’d have to shuffle by me to get to her place, so I’d chat to her and she’d ask me about my career.
“Sometimes, though, and this is the best bit, she’d even pass the sweets around – to show our appreciation of which we’d all then give her a quick blast of old Spice Girls’ songs.
The premise of All Together Now is simple – a hopeful gets up to sing a hit tune in front of a hundred fellow artistes and, if they like what they hear, they also get up and start singing along.
The more people who get up, the more points are scored, and the person with the highest score wins.
“The eventual winner get £50k,” says the 42-year-old, who won the title of best Lady Gaga tribute act in the UK at the National Tribute Music Awards in 2016.
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“Fifty grand – that’s going to come in a lot more useful than the promise of a record contract, like on shows such as The Voice. After all, if that record ends up not selling you’re back to square one with nothing to show for it.”
Donna, who’s originally from Grangetown in Cardiff, speaks from experience, having appeared on similar programmes in the past, before bagging high-profile support slots to groups like Boyzone – only to end up back on the club circuit.
Since emulating her idol Lady Gaga, however – an act to which the eccentric New Yorker has given her personal seal of approval – she’s never looked back, touring internationally to large crowds of adoring fans.
“In fact, the only glitch has been my sister accidentally set my trouser leg on fire with my pyrotechnic bra once,” she laughs.
“But, apart from that, it’s been incident free.”
All Together Now returns to BBC1 next Saturday.