Tobias Turley and Desmonda Cathabel
And then there were ten. Two more bit the dust in ITV’s Sunday on-location talent show to find a Sky and Sophie for next year’s 25th-anniversary production of Mamma Mia! after the 12 remaining contestants for the prized roles of the two young lovers were split into pairs.
Out went promising Maisie Waller, a factory worker from Margate who found making the leap from amateur dramatics to the West End stage against some highly-trained, proven performers just too wide. Sadly, her ‘The One That I Want’ wasn’t the one the judges wanted in their search for a Sophie.
Out too went Callum Ravden, from Oxford, in his third year on an acting course at drama school but with no previous interest in musical theatre. In fact, he had never seen The Greatest Showman – the movie his ‘Rewrite the Stars’ duet with Stephanie Costi came from – and rather talked himself out of it by saying he felt “a little bit overwhelmed”. Being out of tune on his opening line did not help. To round off a bad day for the eliminated pair, the umbrellas were up in Corfu and it was raining!
“Chemistry Week” began with Paul Garrington, Mamma Mia!’s international associate director, being drafted in to help the contestants create eye contact and make the connection in showing two young people madly in love and about to get married.
From the ensuing workshop and performances, two pairs sailed through with flying colours, Tobias Turley and Desmonda Cathabel (currently playing Jasmine in Aladdin in Edinburgh) and the Celtic fusion of sparky Glaswegian lass Stevie Doc with Belfast’s dashing Owen Johnston, while others struggled with the chemistry or underperformed because of nerves.
Turley, a GSA graduate who played Kurt in Heathers at The Other Palace, and 2022 Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year Cathabel, got a standing O from the four judges, West End leading ladies Samantha Barks and Amber Riley, pop singer/songwriter Jessie Ware and comedian Alan Carr, for their charming ‘Love Is an Open Door’ from Frozen, a routine that required neat timing and cute acting skills. Both rose splendidly to the occasion.
Owen Johnston and Stevie Doc
As the star of Frozen, Barks was particularly affected as it is a song she hears eight times a week in the show “and I just fell in love with you”. It’s very hard not to fall in love with Barks too as she wears her heart on her sleeve and is doing everything she can to help these youngsters. As a former contestant in a similar TV search for a new musical star half a lifetime ago, she feels their pain and their joy.
Barks was close to tears after Stevie and Owen knocked ‘Shallow’, the A Star is Born movie hit, out of the park, explaining: “That was the first dance at my wedding.” Fellow judge Carr added: “The song was ‘Shallow’ but the connection was deep.” Must remember that one, Alan…
Carr asked the feisty Stevie, a final-year student and MT coach, whether they could be the next Sky and Sophie, and she quick as a flash replied: “I’d bloomin’ like to!” She has plenty going for her as does Italia Conti graduate Owen. They make a fine pair and there was no shortage of chemistry there.
It will come as a surprise if the two winners to be chosen by public vote at the live final in London on 10 December do not come from this quartet, plus the aforementioned Stephanie Costi from St Albans, impressive both in workshop and performance, and Craig Watson from Perthshire who consistently gets good notes. “You always deliver” praised judge Ware after the flying Scotsman’s lively dip into Grease with partner Maisie.
Of the other four, 20-year-old powerhouse Leah Rutherford has a thrilling, special voice but one surely more suited to one of the queens in Six than sweet Sophie; Marcellus Whyte, good as he is, may just come up short; while the judges, by putting Esme Bowdler and Zachkiel Smith in the bottom two in each section, have now shown their hand, suggesting that pair will have a job on to survive the next two eliminations. All will be revealed in Chapter 5 next Sunday.
Jeremy Chapman
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