Consider yourself ……. delighted!
Well, now that the dust has settled and you have had time to pick yourself up off the floor, or maybe you have just finished watching Britain’s Got Talent on Skyplus; what a final!
I must admit I didn’t have the pleasure of watching the results show live, as I was at a gig, but I did see the three girls battle it out to begin with. Then I blocked all media coverage and watched the results at midnight, braced for a bad result. But what of the final three?
Firstly, Sam handled herself with real grace. I know I have given her some stick on here as she did seem slightly too driven for me and lacking in emotion. Her performances again, lacked the pizzazz yesterday needed to win, but she was a really gracious third place contestant. Not once did she resemble a spoilt brat like many do who get so close.
If you saw Britain’s Got Talent on the other side, you probably know what I mean. I’m sure this lass has a future, she could end up in Chicago, although I can see Bill Kenwright rubbing his hands with glee as he may just have found another narrator for his Joseph tour; an ideal role for Sam. If Tara can do it!
This left us with two girls let to sing each other off the show. The Panel had their favourites and didn’t we know about it, eh? ALW made the most snide comments I have ever heard on a show of this type. He said to Jodie: “Whatever’s been written about you, you have an outsized talent!” This was a slightly veiled reference (albeit see-through!) to the poor girl’s weight. This comment alone, probably led to huge swathes of people picking up the damn phone, forgetting about the scandals, votes not counting, etc and hitting redial, regardless!
The performances from the final two were excellent. Jessie showed real poise in her delivery but did you notice she had been advised not to move at all?! The effect being she resembled a mannequin during “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face.” She belted out each number with real determination but like previous weeks, there was aggression also, as she could see how close she was. Some of this is down to age. But some of it is also down to Barry, ALW, and Cameron for building her up, in order to get Jodie out, to be honest.
Jodie’s I have Nothing was filled with a real sense of loss. I think all of the critical brick bats/digs had taken their toll, as she was close to tears. But, bravo, as it led to an excellent heartfelt performance. The final song was “As Long As He Needs Me” and again, Jodie delivered a remarkable performance; incredibly commanding and at that moment I really felt she deserved the role and could carry it off.
Jessie’s vocal talents have never been called into question but her lack of maturity mean that she was so intent on giving a winning turn, that she often resorted to a shouting match, throwing her hands up as if to say the audience: “Vote for me, I’m friggin’ raw, me!” It comes across like a boxer scared of falling on the ropes, all show and bluster but no hard punches.
The panel were asked who should be Nancy:
ALW: Jessie
Cameron: “Jessie is Nancy!”
DVO: Jodie
John: Jodie
Barry: Jessie
I must admit, as my favourite never wins these types of shows, I rooted for Jodie but I prepared myself to hear: “The winner is…… J-essie.”
And the winner is…….
When I heard the name Jodie instead, I jumped into the air. She has not always been on the money for me, but last night she proved all (well, all except ALW, Cameron and Barry) the doubters wrong. One of the best moments in the show was seeing Cameron praise her through gritted teeth by saying how great it was for Jodie (not for him then) and ALW said she was “the people’s Nancy!” (not his, then!).
But, for me, the money shot was seeing DVO and John hug each other as Jodie’s name was called. She was the performer’s Nancy; no doubt about it! These two friends were genuinely over the moon.
Jodie seemed incredibly shocked at the win and this is really humbling. The camera then panned to Jessie sat crying next to her parents and you had to feel for the girl as the Lord, Barry and Cameron had been praising her beyond her wildest dreams. In her head, she had the prize. But they should have gave her constructive criticism, like they gave Jodie, it would have grounded her. It was like seeing a child fed sweets non- stop for a month and then being told: “No more!” The rattle would have been lobbed from the buggy!
They tried everything to get her to win; letting her sing second, get her to pick up an Oliver- “Look she’s raw and maternal!” But the viewers voted with their heads and their hearts and the best gal won. So what if she is a stock Nancy! There was never an Amy Winehouse in the building in the first place!
Well, all that is to be said now is: “Thanks so much for reading this blog. I have wanted this all my life, ever since I can remember, it’s been my dream!!”
Seriously, thanks for visiting. Whether you agreed or disagreed with my thoughts, that’s what this page has been for, debating. Now the only question is, are you going to book to see Oliver! now, or not?
Congratulations Jodie! And to all the girls; consider yourself very proud!
June 1st, 2008 at 10:19 am
I am not sure if the loser was Jessie, or Cameron and Jodie.
I can see why Cameron wanted Jessie; as a director you want your production to stand out from all the others, you want to take risks and give a new creative twist to it. He would have been able to do that with Jessie, but Jodie is a traditional (ordinary) Nancy, and there’s not a lot Cameron can do to make her stand out from those that went before her. This is the typical conflict between director and audience - the paying punters wanted to see the buxom, warm and fiesty Nancy that they’re used to.
I am concerned for Jodie because it has been made very clear that Cameron did not want her, and it’s so tough for an actress to work with a director that she knows didn’t want her (trust me, I’ve been there). Jodie does not have the self-belief that the others had, and she was always suprised when she was voted in every week and seemed to be questioning why she deserved to be there. ultimately I think Cameron and Jodie’s relationship has been damaged.
Barry gets more and more laothsome: “The West End needs Samantha” … Is that what you call yours Barry???
June 1st, 2008 at 10:54 am
It’s a good job Cameron’s not directing, isn’t it!
According to the website, Matthew Bourne and Rupert Goold are co-directors.
I’m so chuffed for Jodie. As I’ve said elsewhere: the Nancy that is presented to an audience is the Nancy they get. Why gamble that Jessie will be ready in 6 months when it will take Jodie much less time to absorb the role. That 6 months can be used for the elements that need it: the Olivers. They will take a lot more work, if only because there are three of them!
Jessie _will_ be a star, you can count on that, as will Samantha. Jodie is what people expect from Nancy. And, let’s face it, Oliver the music isn’t exactly as open to re-invention as Cameron thinks it is!
June 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Jodie was always the one for me, although I did warm to Jessie eventually. One minute Barry Humphries is praising Jodie and wanting to watch her from the wings, the next, he has a face like a smacked arse. Don’t think he was thinking with his head or his heart. One thing that has constantly puzzled me, is ALW’s leaning towards sopranos. The role was written for Georgia Brown, and like Jodie, a soprano she aint. Also surprised at CM’s point of view, having cast Sonia Swaby in the same role. I don’t remember her as being exactly slyph-like. And why should she be? Shouldn’t they have cast Bill Sykes after they cast Nancy? Maybe they’ll insist Burn Gorman puts on a bit of weight. Can’t imagine that though, even though Jodie will be pressured to lose some. She was always the warmest, sexiest performer in the contest. Not all guys are interested in MTV prettiness and hot-pants.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[…] If you’d like to read another reaction to last night’s show, check out the What’s on Stage blog here […]
June 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
What an utter travesty!! Jodie was always a bland and average cabaret perfomer. Her rendition of As Long As He Needs Me was strained and quite frankly uncomfortable to listen to. Jessie’s was much much better-and I don’t particularly like Jessie-she is awkward and a terrible performer, but vocally she wins hands down over Jodie any day. Samantha did the best version of As Long As He Needs Me by a horses furlong, but it was delivered emotionlessly once again, which is probably the reason she didn’t win. Ashley was Nancy for me-the maternal nature and build of Jodie whilst having a quirky and powerful vocal-but I think Rachel would have been better than any of the final three. And its true that Cameron and ALW looked devestated by the result and Cameron saying I’m thrilled ‘for Jodie’ was a hilarious and telling moment. I reckon that Jodie will do the minimum amount of shows that is possible to appease the public and the second her obligatory contract runs out she’ll be out on her ear and probably never star in the West End again. Samantha is destined for a big career-did anyone else think she looked slightly too happy to finish third (already had a job offer methinks!)…. It’s been a great series, but ALW has hinted that next year there may not be one-and I think this result will not spur the BBC on to do another any time soon, which is a shame!
June 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Jessie has a good voice but her total inability to take any form of criticism bothered me. Despite being told several times that she had to work on her movements she appeared to have not changed one bit and even had to sit motionless to sing one song last night because of her awkwardness. Learning that her Father strode up to John Barrowman after Jessie lost, shouted at him and then stormed off in a temper upset me a lot too. With a Father like that it’s no wonder Jessie can’t take direction easily. The only person she appeared to listen to was Liza Minelli and I doubt that she would be available for six months coaching.
As for Cameron Mackintosh–he is the Producer-not the artistic director–for all I know he might be tone deaf–he certainly struck me as being rather childish–I didn’t get what I wanted so I am going to make sure the Winner doesn’t get many shows and I shall do my best to make her fail–then I can get what I want—whine whine—
ALW puzzled me—and Barry–UGH–totally useless–
I feel I ought to point out yet again that the Nancy role is mostly acting and moving–having a good voice is not the most important thing with this role—it’s important but not the most important thing—
June 1st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I am thrilled and delighted for Jodie. My mother also watched this program and all the way through wanted Jessie, then Jodie, then Jessie, then Jodie to win. I wanted Rachel to be Nancy, but once she was voted off, my vote was for Sam. I can totally see her as the Narrator in Joseph… I think she would be wonderful at that… although not sure DVO would like Sam playing a role so close to Lee!
Personally I thought Jessie was terrible… her hand movements, and touching of her hair and those staring eyes, all put me off. She had a nice singing voice (most of the time), but that was not enough for me… something about her performance was way too desperate.
I watched ‘Any Dream Will Do’ from start to finish. Even though my money was on Daniel Boys to win it, I thought Lee very much deserved to win. I bought tickets for Mum and I to see him, on what originally was to be his final night, in January…. and he was fantastic. The show is quite superb.
I think Jodie will play a marvellous Nancy, but I will not be going to see the show. I just don’t feel the same draw to the show as I did with Joseph.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
Thank you for your blog! It’s been great to have somewhere to discuss the show and your thoughts have been so insightful and entertaining!
I am so pleased Jodie won, I think she will make a fantastic Nancy. I don’t know if I will go and see it; I have seen Oliver so many times!! I hope that CM and ALW are nice to her - I am bit worried they don’t really want her and will try and get rid of her asap. I did think Jessie was fantastic on the night, but the posture problems were still there so she is just not ready to be Nancy. I’m sure all of them will go onto other things anyhow (The Josephs and Marias seem to have)
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Jodie was the only one of the three who deserved to be in the final and therefore deserved to win. I love Jessie but she needs three years at Drama School to learn her craft and to learn how to take direction. She tried too hard in the final and at times just shouted.
The general opinion of those who I have talked to who work in the business is that Jodie was the only possible Nancy of the final three.
Fortunately the public came to an acceptable decision after voting out ,sometimes with the help of ALW, the strongest contenders. To be fair to ALW he was gutted to have to send home Sarah and Keisha.
I think that this should be the last of such programmes as anyone who works in the industry knows that at least half of the contenders would never have made the shortlist with a casting director.
The standard of I’d do anything was higher than Maria but a great deal lower than that of Joseph.
Now that I can rest assured that I am not going to have to watch Samantha as Nancy I am off to buy my tickets.
I cannot wait to see Jodie in the West End.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Let’s get real here. Jodie won for lots of reasons (connection with the audience, consistency, back-story and oh, talent). She’s a proper singer who’ll have no problems with 6 shows a week, possibly more. It’s the other younger, less experienced girls who would’ve peaked at 4 - and, let’s face it really NEED the six months rehearsal.
What was really interesting about the final was the on-stage talent were squarely there for Jodie and the back-stagers for Jesse. One has to ask “why?”. The normally overly-ebullient Mr B put is finger on it when he talked about consistency, reliability and the requirements of ‘performance’, something neither The Lord or Cameron know nothing about from a first-hand perspective. Their expertise should lie elsewhere. They were there to show professionalism, cool business sense and a sharp sense of what audiences want (at least that’s what I hope Producers do). They didn’t. One seemed to be thinking with the small brain (or if the rumours are true, the rather impressive brain) and the other seemed to be simply out to lunch. Both should have kept their mouths squarely shut and stopped trying to influence what was obviously a close vote for their ‘favourite’.
They didn’t realise (and this is real tragedy for them) that the British public love an underdog (and THEY created one by giving her such a hard time) and that Jodie was always going to connect with the wider British public who recognised their experience and themselves in her.
I am amazed that these profesionals could have got the sense of the public so wrong. But then again, I didn’t go and see Gone With The Wind, ‘cos it sounded canine from the get-go, so what do I know about public taste?
Those of us who predicted Jodie as the winner from the first audition may feel relieved (for the show), but it’s a tragedy for her that she’s now going to be in a production where the producer has publically stated that he didn’t want her. But she’s obviously a fighter (one of the things the public liked in her, and in BGT’s George, by the way) and let’s hope she kicks Cameron’s arse. Figuratively, of course.
Oh, and finally. Concerning The Lord. 1. Yes Jesse does look scarily like a young version of La Brightman (with a stroke…..) 2. God he needed to get laid before the show on Saturday. He was like a teenager on heat. And 3. I hope he’s able to get a grip before Phantom2 crashes onto our stage with the speed of a falling (or should that be crawling) chandelier, and cast singer/actors who the public actually want to see.
Darius as the Phantom, anybody…….
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Consistency is of course an important quality-but in Jodie’s case it amounted to complete blandness-I almost fell to sleep during her tiresome rendition of As Long As He Needs Me-yes she can fake tears, but does that really make her a great actress?? I totally agree with ALW and Cameron that both Jessie and Samantha had something special about them-whereas Jodie had absolutely nothing-you could have seen an act like hers in any hotel or working men’s club anywhere in the country-and not remembered it a week later and sadly thats they quality she’s going to bring to Nancy-being forgettable. There were many excellent performers throughout the series and once Keisha and Francesca left they were all really talented, but Jodie was the worst of the bunch!
June 4th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
kingathon27 Says:
I must add that you forgot to put some words in your post–these words are –in my opinion—because many folk would disagree with you–the fact that you think something doesn’t make it true–it’s your opinion—
June 4th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
True I did forget that-and clearly many people did disagree with me by voting for Jodie and the fact that she won the competition flys in the face of what I think. But I would certainly challenge anyone who thinks that Jodie is a very good vocalist-she is average and she did strain on certain songs. I can understand why she won, but for me it was the wrong result.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
What a breath of fresh air it would have been to have seen Jessie play the role of Nancy on the West End stage. How exciting it would have been to see this young new talent singing ALAHNM.
She could have been an Irish Nancy, how well she would have done that, however, if the criteria for Nancy was for her to have a cockney accent, I am sure she could have done it, In the six months she had to learn it this would have made a great documentary, showing her remarkable journey.
On Saturday night I was disappointed with the unprofessionalism shown by John Barrowman and Denise Van Oulten when the results were announced, it was awful to see. This made me realise how difficult they tried to make it for Jessie week in and week out with Barrowman’s comments such as, ‘a fish out of water’ and Oulten’s remarks of unfeminine, clumsy, inconsistent, and the rest. The good that came out of this was Jessie proved them both totally wrong especially when she did her ALAHNM and the fantastic duet she did with Gwion, this I feel was the performance of the night, her interaction with Gwion, her stage presence and her movements were spot on, well done Jessie!
Jodie will do well in her role as Nancy, she has a strong voice, yet I still see Jodie as a comic, a good entertainer, someone who comes across to her audience as a physically strong woman who could easily defend herself against the likes of Bill Sykes. I wish Jodie well, but the particular role of Nancy belonged to the fresh new face of Jessie who would have been believable and brilliant.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Isn’t it strange that Jessie more than anyone else has polarised opinion, some veheremently pro and some vehermently against so much so the forum has become a little personal at times.
I am against to be honest but not passionately so - I just didn’t really enjoy most of her performances - she has tallent, a great singing voice and I could definitely see the potential and her performace of ALAHNM was incredible so when she was good she was really, really good just not consistent (that c word again!) she would have made an interesting Nancy indeed.
In hindsight, though I initially liked JB and DVOs reaction as being one of joy at Jodie winning as I felt that too (probably beacuse it was such a surprise) I do appreciate how that must have looked to Jessie and her supporters and was kind of rubbing salt into the wound. I can see how what I perceived as a spontaneous act of happiness was as unprofessional as Sam smiling at the departing Rachel and CMs comment to Jodie on her winning.
I wasn’t really aware of JB and DVO giving Jessie a hard time anymore than any of the judges gave any of the others - I guess like all of us they have favourites so its hard to be impartial even for them - have to say I though ALW comment to Ashley about “time to catch the bus” was the worst of the show even worse than “I dont rate your voice” - I cringed . Then there was ALWs comments to them both in the final; luke warm to Jodie but really gushing to Jessie - I should think that stung a bit too
I have to say really liked Jodie even though she wouldn’t have been my first choice out of all the contestants I still felt she stood out from the first time I saw her (I am a bit partial to a good belter) equally for her character and personality. I think she will do a great job being a believable Nancy that the audience will identify with and care about
I just hope all the rumours about CM aren’t true and that he will support Jodie through the process she deserves his best attention and help because after all she was the publics choice
June 6th, 2008 at 10:36 am
JB and DVO didn’t give Jessie anywhere near as hard a time as ALW gave Ashley or Cameron gave Jodie….
June 10th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I’m in the fortunate position of having seen Jodie’s debut professional performance, in pantomime in Yeovil in 2004, when she was a great deal bigger than she is now, and an unlikely choice as the Slave of the Ring.
She was playing opposite the irrepressible Ben Langley, who should be added to children and animals to be avoided on stage if you want a look-in.
She was a revelation. Not only is she warm and funny, but has excellent natural timing and the instant on-stage charisma for which some of the other I’d Do Anything contestants were praised - and she was not. Of course praiseworthy to look for star quality among the very young, but 28 is hardly ancient.
I think that the judges were so busy seeing Jodie as the “traditional” Nancy – simply because of her size – that they missed some of those aspects of her performing talents that I saw in Yeovil. It will be a very nice shock for them when the excellent Rupert Goold and the quirkily inspired Matthew Bourne have woven their magic on the show in the West End.
June 29th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
if you weigh it up like this …
you have cameron macintosh and andrew lloyd webber both known for their contribution to the theatre world and are both successful directors/composers
THEN you’ve got barry humphries who was in a stage production of oliver and knows what an on stage nancy should be like
>>ALL OF THEM WANTING JESSIE>BOTH WANTING JODIE
August 17th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
jessie would have been perfect for nancy, i was voting for her all the way. she’s so amaing and i idolise her.
December 24th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Hi, what blog platform is this? Is it working for you or..? I would really love it if you could answer this question! Thanks!