Grrr! Last week Andrew was annoyed, well this week I’m annoyed!
*Spoiler Warning*
How on EARTH could he send Sarah home!? She’s been awesome these last few weeks, and was also the Olivers favourite Nancy and whatnot. Absolutely annoyed at that decision – I do hope that she gets offered other theatrical work out of this instead. I can see her doing well in something like My Fair Lady or Sound of Music.
The sing-off was very good and I was rather moved by it (as were most of the judges it seemed). Sunset Boulevard’s “As If We Never Said Goodbye” is such an emotive and relevant song – a good pick by Andrew.
To summarise some of the more memorable performances this week;
Sarah’s Mr Bojangles was amazing I thought – she really told the story.
Jessie was stunning, and it was very easy to see why ALW was moved in the VT and Denise proclaimed the performance the best of the season! The song is Judy Garland’s “The Man Who Got Away”.
Samantha’s version of Sway was awesome, and I really love that they’ve renamed The Isle of Man toThe Isle of Samin honour of her position in this competition – bless ‘em!
I didn’t really rate Ashley all that much this week unfortunately, the accent sounded plain weird. Not quite sure what she was trying to achieve with that.
Hopefully next week will be when we start getting two songs each from the Nancys as I’d love to get a flavour of two very different performances on the same night; in a musical there will often be an eclectic mix of songs that you’ll hear the character sing within that two hour period and so the show should really start to hot up once this occurs.
A bit of a backwards blog this week, but I was just so shocked and dismayed to find that they got rid of Sarah! It’s their loss I guess (her exit song certainly proved that!), and I hope that one day they come to regret passing her over in a way.
OK, so I’ve just sat down to watch this week’s (26th April) ‘I’d Do Anything’ and I am feeling rather mixed about it. Although there were a few fantastic performances this week, I feel that there were far too many duff performances for this stage of the competition.
The worst performance by far had to be Niamh’s cover of ‘Valerie’…
Out of tune, an ‘attitude’ that stunk, painful and the choreography made me cringe terribly! She made a lot of progress with me last week; however I think that she’s just gone and undone it now and she’d be my choice to leave this week to be honest.
Sarah is going from strength to strength – WOW! I’d now place her as my number 1 choice to be Nancy!
Samantha was absolutely awesome at belting out ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and really gave it some welly! Alas, the BBC have yet to put a clip of her up on YouTube it would appear.
Jodie stunned me – a real mature performance for once and she proved she’s got a fabulous set of lungs on her! I hated 9 to 5 last week, I thought she massacred it, but her version of “I Have Nothing” was believable, powerful and emotive! Another strong contender!
As for Jessie, I’m not raving about her so much at the moment. She needs another ‘One Night Only’ to get back to my good spot me thinks. Ashley now seems a lost cause… her performance this week was bland, unrecognisable and forgettable. Such a pity as I really do like her. That said, I would still hope that she’d be there next week.
The Olivers did one of my favourite songs from Annie (Hard-Knock life) which I really enjoyed too. Chester is probably my fave Oliver thus far and perhaps one of the least ‘weird’ hehe.
Written Monday 28 April 2008
Finally had chance to watch the results show, and I was not particularly surprised at the bottom two. I must confess that I was routing for Niamh to go initially, however I can see why, after 4 ‘bottom two’s’ that Keisha had to be dropped - especially when she’d consistently been the least popular Nancy and thus was really taking up another girl’s place.
Their sing-off on The Rose was awesome and moved me somewhat. It also helped to convince me that Niamh should stay this week, despite the fact that I really dislike her fringe!
In all my time of being infactuated with everything ALW related (not in a perverse/weird sense though!) I’ve never seen or heard of the Lord coming across as annoyed as this though – I couldn’t tell at first if he made an early exit at the end due to his anger or just another of his ill-timed TV moments (such as his faces and pointing hehe). It was only when I saw the close-ups on YouTube that I saw the sense of fury that was spread across his face that I realised how ticked-off he seemed!
Something else clicked with me this evening too, and that being that Cameron Mackintosh probably has a lot more involvement in Andrew’s decisions than the Lord himself. As we all know, the theatre production is Cameron’s and Andrew’s merely fronting the TV show for him – and so it stands to reason that Cameron should be making the executive decisions really. I would presume that the results show is now on a Sunday for a few reasons; on the surface due to the voting fiasco that normally surrounds these things, weird scheduling reasons at the BBC (e.g. Russell T Davies is rumoured to be very unhappy at the random placing of Doctor Who this season) and also so that Cameron has chance to review the show and share his thoughts with Andrew prior to the sing-off. I also think that would explain why Andrew decided to save Ashley last week, despite doling out some of the harshest critique that I’ve seen him give. Maybe I have an over-active imagination, but one cannot help thinking that Cameron is certainly pulling strings at a very high level, despite his reluctance to appear on the TV show.
Wow - last week (20th April) saw them performing what I thought was the best group performance thus far…
Fabulous choreography, though God knows why they included Graham Norton and that rolling pin hehe!!
Performances of the week go to;
Sarah – Midnight Train To Georgia (Gladys Knight)
I think her performance style matured so much this week and she really nailed the song – a serious contender now maybe – good on ya girl!
Samantha – Hurt (Christina Aguilera)
WOW is all I can say! I had started to panic when I heard that this song was chosen to show emotion, predicting ham overacting and the like, but I think Samantha really did pull it off well and I was somewhat moved to be honest!
I was so surprised to find Ashley in the sing-off along side Francesca, and I am glad that the right person left the show this week.
I SOOOOOOO can’t wait for the weekend – whoop!
Thanks for reading xx
PS – I just found a clip of the trailer for this show (which I hadn’t seen before) and so figured I’d post that too hehe!
Cor, just watched the I’d Do Anything results show, and was thrilled to find that my two current obsessions (this programme and the musical Hairspray) had smashed into one when the Nancy’s performed ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ as their group number.
I think I need to retract some of what I said in my previous post; Niamh was fantastic and crikey, when she started to belt, I went all tingly! I think this performance has completely changed my opinion of her. I now rank her about third to win I think.
Tara was the right decision I think for the departing Nancy, though I really do think Keisha’s days are numbered. I couldn’t decide whether I liked her version of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ or not as I thought her diction wasn’t suited to the song.
Anyways, I’ve said it once, and now I’ve said it twice – roll on Saturday night! D
Just been watching show three of ‘I’d Do Anything’ on the BBC and WOW, the competition certainly has hot up in this past week! Cor!
Jessie is still my absolute favourite, below is her performance of ‘One Night Only’ – absolutely stunning!
Ashley’s my other favourite (and is my choice should Jessie not win)…
This almost made me cry!
I also liked Keisha’s song this week, The Lady Is A Tramp. I think Keisha’s clearly talented, but I am unsure about whether she is right for Nancy or not… she seems a little too good at the smooth soulstress songs rather than the rocky/raunchy ones that Nancy has to be able to pull off given her social status/role in the East End of London.
I’ve yet to see who gets voted out this week, however I am not particularly fussed about Fran (can’t stand her now), Tara (she looks like Becky outta Corrie), Niamh (I know people say that she’s fantastic, but I can just see her as too naive and I also dislike her fringe hehe). Ooo I’ve just seen who’s in the sing-off (clicked on a wrong YouTube link) – I think the bottom two are correct decisions for this week.
In Manchester with Stu on Saturday, so will be doing my usual catch up Sunday me thinks. Only 6 days to go till I can giggle at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s enthusiasm for the ‘red button’! D
I am pleased to find, despite my initial reservations, that this show has raised it’s game and has once again become compulsive Saturday night viewing! Whoop!
After the rain of this morning, it was really nice to nip outside to purchase lunch and see the sun shining, blue skies overhead and the buzz of tourists and people picnicing in the square… I have a feeling that this summer will be absolutely fabulous and I am soooo looking forward to it. This will be the summer to beat all previous summers! Terribly optomistic and chirpy I know… but I have a good feeling and I intend to hang onto it and make this summer one to remember!
On a different note, I was correct…
“Rowan Atkinson, will return to the stage next year to play Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Oliver!, which is now confirmed to open at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in January 2009, directed by Rupert Goold.”
Very good few TV shows thus far, Jessie or Cleo to win!!!
So, it would seem that the latest musical theatre reality-casting show has finally hit our Saturday night BBC TV screens!
I’d Do Anything reunites Andrew Lloyd Webber and the creative team behind Any Dream Will Do and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? in the nationwide search for a Nancy and 3 Olivers to play on the West End stage in a new production of Oliver! (which sees Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh reunite for the first time in 21 years). For anyone interested, the theatre is strongly rumoured to be the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane as Lord Of The Rings has just posted early closure having only played there for a year.
The format remains the same, though we only get to choose the Nancy; Lloyd-Webber and Mackintosh are choosing the Olivers directly (the auditions did look somewhat like they were grooming them though to be honest!!). In twelve weeks time, we will hopefully have a new West End starlet and no doubt the crowds will flock to see them in this show - both TheSound of Music and Joseph have enjoyed phenomenal success thus far, which the producers will no doubt be hoping to replicate once again.
I was slightly disappointed by the first episode, which covered the auditions, as it all seemed rather hurried and of a slightly tired format. I have been looking forward to this show for months now, as I am an avid musical theatre geek, and Andrew Lloyd Webber is pretty much like God to me hehe. I am hoping that the live shows help me to engage with the contestants a little more and pull me into the show.
I saw the below logo today, which I thought made the whole show look sordid and seedy hehe…
… would you?! Yikes! (though in fairness, John Barrowman is rather hot for an older man!)
I am also missing the chance to perv on the hot boys, such as the ones that we had in Any Dream Will Do last year, and so I felt the urge to post this lovely picture of former contestant Ben James-Ellis, who is currently doing very well for himself in Hairsprayat the Shaftesbury Theatre.
But seriously…. PHWOAR!!! P
Next year it’ll be the turn of the lads again - my money’s on them casting for Jesus Christ Superstar (with the show title of either “Jesus Christ Superstar?” or just “Superstar?”). Time will tell as to whether or not I’ve guessed right – though if they pick this show next year, it means we’ll get to see some more muscles! Woo! P
Returning back to I’d Do Anything, I think that I’ve seen potential in one or two of the contestants, though I don’t think I’ll be able to pick who I want to win until we get to the live shows, simply as the editing on the auditions is far too fast. No doubt I will review each show and so feel free to subscribe for updates via RSS or email (links on the right).
D
