This Dream will do (From The Northern Echo)

This Dream will do

11:52am Saturday 6th November 2010 in Theatre

Francesca Jackson didn’t come first in the TV talent show I’d Do Anything, but she won a far better prize, she tells Steve Pratt.

FRANCESCA Jackson was one of the Nancys – the would-be musical stars competing in a TV talent show for a leading role in a London West End revival of Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver!

She didn’t win the part, but was rewarded with something just as good – a part in a production in Paris of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. The bonus was that the composer himself was involved in the show.

The offer came as a direct result of appearing in the reality show I’d Do Anything, on BBC1.

“The director of A Little Night Music saw me on I’d Do Anything, called my agent, said they’d watched me on the show and wanted to give me a chance they thought I deserved. It was really out of the blue,” explains Jackson, who’s touring to York next week in the musical Dreamboats And Petticoats.

“It really was fantastic. We had Stephen Sondheim there for the week to give us notes for the show. It was quite incredible. We played in an opera house in Paris and sold out every night. French audiences were so appreciative of it.”

No wonder she has no regrets about taking part in I’d Do Anything. “It’s the biggest and best audition you can do, and for me to get the Paris job just proved it was completely worthwhile,”

she says.

She was one of the more experienced Nancys, having trained at stage school and even appeared in the West End – in, oddly enough, Oliver!

She’s loved musicals since she was very young, growing up in Wales. “I lived in a small village and went to an open audition in Cardiff for young people to be in Oliver! in the West End,” she says.

She landed the role of Nancy’s young companion, Bet, when she was only 14, which meant moving away from home and school to train in London.

She never thought she’d do a show like I’d Do Anything, but was encouraged by two professionals, Connie Fisher and Denise Van Outen.

She was sharing a flat with Fisher, who’d won a role in The Sound Of Music through another BBC1 series, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and was appearing with Denise Van Outen, a judge on that series, in the West End show Rent.

“They both were telling me how amazing it would be. They gave me the confidence to go for it,” says Jackson.

“I was more nervous on a Saturday night than my opening in the West End. It’s very hard work, 24 hours a day – you’re rehearsing and on camera like Big Brother all the time.”

She was the fourth to be eliminated in the live shows, but coming first, as she has proved, isn’t everything. “If you win, you’re tied to that part for a long time,” she says.

“I think every single girl who was in the finals has had fantastic opportunities and gone from job to job or gone to stage school.”

She first appeared in Dreamboats And Petticoats on tour last year, then did a run in the show in the West End and is now back on tour until the beginning of next month.

The show, inspired by three million-selling albums, is set in the early Sixties and has two talented young musicians, Norman and Bobby, competing for the hearts of their female fans – and, more importantly, Jackson’s character, Sue.

The hit songs featured include Let’s Dance, To Know Him Is To Love Him, Shaking All Over, Bobby’s Girl, Only Sixteen, Happy Birthday Sweet 16 and Teenager In Love.

“A lot of the songs I didn’t realise I knew until we started rehearsals. It’s become my music. There are so many songs I love from that era,” she says.

The show is attracting audiences of all ages, who remember the songs. “It really does pull in everybody,” Jackson says.

Her ambitions haven’t changed after taking part in I’d Do Anything. “I just want a strong career in this business, whether it’s TV or plays. I just want to keep going and going.”

■ Dreamcoats And Petticoats: York Grand Opera House, Monday until Saturday.

Tickets 0844-8472322 and online at yorkgrandoperahouse.co.uk