Two pretty good interviews, although both seem to have more to them that I can't see...

Irish Post

Drama Mia - it's Niamh's big West End break

IRISH theatre beauty Niamh Perry has landed her first leading role on the West End.

The North of Ireland singer and actress is playing the part of Sophie Sheridan in the hit musical Mamma Mia.

Last year the popular theatre show — a love story set on a Greek island which features the music of Abba — broke box office records when it was released as a film starring our own Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep, with Mean Girls actress Amanda Seyfried playing the part of Sophie.

Now Perry, originally from Bangor in Co. Down, is hoping to bring her own special flavour to the stage production.

She said: "The thing about this cast change is that me and Sally Anne Triplett — who’s playing Donna and is a huge name in the West End and theatre in general — are quite different from what they usually cast. And I know that I’m a lot younger. But I think that’s something they try to do every cast change to keep it alive and fresh."

Niamh shot to fame here in Britain at the age of 17 when she took part in the BBC reality show I’d Do Anything, which televised the search to find a new musical theatre star to play Nancy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of Oliver. Now two years later she’s enjoying a successful career that others could only dream of.

She said: "I’m just at the beginning of my third week now so it’s hit me all of a sudden. I started rehearsals just after I got the job so I didn’t really have time to process the whole experience. Now that I’ve opened and I’m doing it every night it’s hitting me that I’ve got my first job on the West End.

"A lead in the West End is something you hope for at some stage in your career. And I’ve just been very fortunate that it’s happened so quickly. I was never even sure I’d make it here let alone at 19 so I’m very, very excited," she added.

■ Don’t miss next week’s Irish Post for our full exclusive interview with Niamh about life in London and coping with the pressures of fame.

^ Is there anyone here who could get hold of this?

and:

http://www.theirishworld.com/article.as ... e_Id=10210

the interview bit:

So how’s the West End then?

It’s everything I imagined and more. It’s hard work though. I’m in the show pretty much all the time, and there are quick changes. The show’s over, then there’s a three-song Abba medley and I’m straight back out in a new costume!

How did it all come about?

I went to the audition and sang a Take That song [Love Ain’t Here Any More], they called me back on Friday to sing two ‘Sophie’ songs and do two different scenes with Sky, and they phoned me on Friday night to say I had the job and was to start rehearsals on Monday. I started straight into five weeks of rehearsals and then the show and here I am!

What do you bring to the part that’s different?

I know that on this show the team are very conscious of making it different every year, keeping it fresh. I know I’m very different from any Sophie that’s been before me, but so have all the other Sophies! I think I’m a little bit more edgy. God, I’m so pale and they’ve covered me in fake tan. They’ve completely changed me. I normally wear black all the time but I’m not allowed to wear black –see? I have this brightly coloured dress on. I’ve been Sophie-ed!

What are your favourite bits in the show?

I love it all. I love the song ‘Lay All Your Love’ which I perform with Sky – because then all the male ensemble come on in wetsuits and flippers and it’s very funny and the audience love it. I love the wedding as well, and ‘The Name of the Game’, which is my solo. It’s my favourite Abba song.

When did your love of theatre and music begin?

I was actually classically trained, from the age of about 11. I wanted to be an opera singer initially, and I did that up till I was about 16, and then kind of stumbled into musical theatre. Being in I’d Do Anything just happened – my cousin put the application form down on the table beside my dinner on Christmas day! They always knew it’s something I’d have loved to do, but I needed that encouragement I think to go there.

It hasn’t damaged you too much not winning!

Obviously I was disappointed, but in things just couldn’t be any better. Jodi (Prenger) is brilliant as Nancy – in hindsight, she probably would have done the best job out of all of us. Look at us all; Rachel [Tucker] is amazing in We Will Rock You; Samantha [Barks] is brilliant in Cabaret; Jessie [Buckley] amazing in A Little Night Music. Everybody’s gone on to do really good stuff.

Would you be here now without that show?

I would have been hopeful at this stage to have got into stage school, and maybe have completed my first year. I’ve literally skipped five or six years. I have to thank my exposure on TV, and I’m constantly surrounded by people who are sceptical about the way I got here, but theatre has become such a huge deal that one of the ways of getting there these days is through reality TV.

For me, ‘Nancy’ was both the best and worst experience – worst, because it was so overwhelming that I didn’t take a step back and enjoy things as much as I could have.

n Is Andrew Lloyd Webber a mentor?

Yes, I trust him completely with my career. He gives me totally honest advice, and I know it’s good ‘cos it’s not all necessarily in his favour! He took Jessie and I out for dinner a couple of weeks ago, and there was no need, it was just to catch up with us. He’s a generous person who is very normal. The more famous you are, from what I’ve seen, the more normal you are. It’s the people that are half way up the ladder and think they’re famous that aren’t as genuine.

"For the remainder of this article, see this week's Irish World..." < anyone?

Thank you very much for all the interviews and stuff you find Zippy.

LOL @ the fake tan bit. Poor Niamh! No black clothes!!

Poor nimah being sophie-ed lol! thx ginger for the articles!

Another very good interview!


Irish Post

West End is just the beginning

A SUMMER romance is off the cards for Irish theatre beauty Niamh Perry.

Despite having just taken a leading West End role as the sultry Sophie Sheridan in Mamma Mia! the 19 year-old claims she’s too busy for a boyfriend.

"At the minute I’m actually too busy to think about it," she says. And even if she was, past experiences have taught the Co. Down teenager, who last year came fourth in the BBC talent search for Nancy in Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Oliver, to keep her love life to herself.

"I don’t really talk about it," she says. "I had a horrible experience in the press in Ireland when something was completely misconstrued and it ended up being detrimental to the relationship, so I don’t really talk about it."

Niamh now lives full-time in London but says she won’t be corrupted by life in the city.

"I’m lucky enough that my parents have brought me up very well," she says. "I have my morals still sticking! I’m quite sensible as well and I know my parents know I am too, so they trust me.

"I’ve been full-time in London since January, but since the TV show ended I’ve kind of been here most of the time. The whole process was not at all what I expected and I just kind of took every day as it came.

"When I got kicked out of the TV show (I’d Do Anything) I went back home and did my A-Levels and while doing those I got signed to an agency here and also got my first job in the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, so it kind of just began from there.

"One job led to another and I’ve thankfully been working solidly since the TV show, which is brilliant."

The Bangor starlet’s latest role as Sophie was played by American actress Amanda Seyfried in the 2008 smash hit movie Mamma Mia!, which also featured Meryl Streep and former 007 Pierce Brosnan.

The love story, set on a Greek island paradise, follows Sophie’s quest on the eve of her wedding to discover the identity of her father as she brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited 20 years previously.

But Niamh, who has recently been appointed as a young person’s patron for the North of Ireland charity Music Theatre 4 Youth, admits she wasn’t the obvious choice for the role. She doesn’t have blonde hair or sun-kissed skin and her last job was Christmas panto playing Snow White in Eastbourne.

But the confident singer claims her dark locks are a return to the original script, which is based on the music of Abba.

"The original Sophie in the advertisements for Mamma Mia! had brown hair," she says, "so it’s going back to the original. To be honest, the thing about this cast change is quite different from what they cast in general — I know that I’m a lot younger.

"But I think that’s something they try to do every cast change to keep it alive and fresh. They don’t typecast it.

"I speak with an English accent in Mamma Mia! so no-one has really noticed that I’m not from here. But my accent is something that I would never want to lose because it’s kind of a conversation starter as well.

"Everyone in the cast tries to mimic me and fails miserably. But it helps you become someone else when you adopt a different accent. And I don’t think it would fit in if there was a Northern Irish Nancy living on a Greek island playing Sophie!"

Niamh, who is currently working on solo material with top producer Nick Webber, admits that when it comes to her career she is "completely greedy" and "wants to do everything".

But she is still remaining tightlipped about rumours that she will be cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom: Love Never Dies — the sequel to Phantom Of The Opera — when it opens in the West End in 2010.

"I can’t say anything yet. Nothing is signed, sealed or delivered," she says. The young singer has always been a fan of music and theatre.

She first saw Mama Mia! when she was just 12 years old, but says you’ll find her listening to anything from Kings Of Leon to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol on her iPod when she’s in her dressing room.

"I went to see Mamma Mia!, the international tour, in the Point Theatre in Dublin when I was 12 or 13," she says, "and have loved it ever since and know every word. It really helped but the only thing is about Abba music is that you think you know it, but it isn’t until you’ve got such a brilliant musical director as we have, that you realise that you can’t make it up as you go along and you have to sing it as it was written originally. So some stuff I had to relearn."

Playing a lead role in the West End is something Niamh has always dreamed off, but sadly there is some of her family who never lived to see her success.

As a result Niamh has dedicated her performance in the show to her grandmothers Rose and Mae and her uncle Aidan.

She says: "My uncle Aidan passed away in 2005 and he was so proud of me and absolutely loved me to sing. And my grandparents never got to hear me sing.

"I was quite late in realising that I could actually sing in tune. I didn’t have any grandparents when I learned I could sing so the performance is dedicated to them."


Aww.

Nice.

Thanks Zippy!

Awwww =3

Thanks Ginger!