X Factor star Diana Vickers makes West End debut

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Former X Factor wannabe Diana Vickers vamps it up as a sequinned sex-bomb in her new West End show.

New role: Diana Vickers in Little Voice

The teenage star plays the central role in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, mimicking stars such as Dame Shirley Bassey, Edith Piaf and Marilyn Monroe.

The singer plays shy but talented Little Voice, known as LV, who comes out of her shell to brilliantly copy some of the world's most memorable singers.

And Vickers said today that it was easier to play the role when she's "all vamped up".

She dons a revealing sparkly silver gown for the scene in which agent and wheeler-dealer Ray Say (Marc Warren) gets her a gig performing at the local nightclub, singing all her favourite songs.

Vickers, 18, said: "Obviously, it's quite hard playing a shy person when I'm not.

"It's quite hard to express yourself through facial expressions when I use my hands a lot, I talk a lot. But when I get up on that stage in my silver frock and I'm doing all these diva things it's just amazing.

"I'm not Vickers, I'm just all these different people."

The production of Jim Cartwright's play is being staged at London's Vaudeville Theatre, co-starring Warren and Lesley Sharp, who plays her mother.

Vickers - who revealed her former X Factor mentor Cheryl Cole is coming to watch her in the play - studied hard to learn the voices of the singing legends she imitates on stage.

"LV expresses herself through these people and I can totally understand why she would do that. It's just this great sense of freedom and it's great."

"There were some singers I'd never heard of. I didn't know who Edith Piaf was - I saw her on the Specsavers advert. I knew Judy Garland, but not a lot of her songs, just Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

"I was really nervous but so excited as well, it was like my own little project and took it upon myself and worked so hard at it and I really enjoyed it as well.

"I used to look them up on YouTube and now I always listen to Judy Garland all the time, I think she's great.

The closing song is written especially for the new run of the show by Take That's Mark Owen.

Vickers said: "When everyone told me that he was going to do it I had a small heart attack. He's so talented. I met him before and I was star struck."

"I was with him and I was just looking at him as he was singing it thinking 'Oh my God. You're a genius.' It's such an amazing song."

Sharp praised her co-star: "I'm really in awe of Diana I think she's an amazing singing talent but I also think for someone of her age she is so focused and disciplined and smart and doesn't seem to have been affected in a negative way by any of the attention that's been focused on her."

 

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