Desperate to be a Nancy: I'd Do Anything explained...

I'd Do Anything / Editor / 26 March 2008 / Leave a Comment

Paul Sorene run the rule over the latest prime-time BBC show for fame-seeking wannabes

"Meet the Nancys," implores the I'd Do Anything website.

No, not Graham Norton. Looking for a Nancy is the BBC's big joke.

"Welcome to Nancy School," says Denis Van Outen to the assembled would-be Nancys and, naturally, host Graham Norton.

Or just Graham. This is "Oliver". There's a voice coach who once starred in "Phantom". We're looking for Nancy. The Olivers appeared. We saw "Arthur". We met "Joseph".

The show is only one week old and we're already on first name terms with everybody.

One person who doesn't have one name on the show is Andrew Lloyd Webber, who, greedily, has three.

And there's Francesca, who has two names - one real name and one stage name. Francesca has just been working with the aforesaid Denise, the show's judge. So that means lots of room for contentious decisions and scandal.

She also looks Sharon from EastEnders.

She should do well.

The big Nancy

John Barrowman (a Nancy judge), Graham and Denise then put cards of each Nancy on a table and chose which ones they liked. The gang then called the Nancys into a room and told 18 of them "You could be Nancy" and the rest "You could not be Nancy".

Such is the desire to be taken for a 19th Century prostitute, that the girls are either elated or crushed.

Graham's job was to commiserate with the non-Nancys, which is kind of bathetic. Graham then compounds the failures' misery by telling them how talented they are and how wonderful, which makes the pain of rejection all the more acute. It causes the hoofers to spend the rest of their lives believing they can do it and to carry on singing and performing.

Of course, their loss is Simon Cowell's gain.

Keisha told us that "at the end of the day, there's only one Nancy". Which sounded deep but is not really all that true, because once the show goes live there will be a stand-in Nancy, a matinee Nancy and a Nancy for when the show leaves the West End and tours the provinces.

If it returns to London as a hit production, there will be a Nancy for Kelly Osbourne, Anthea Turner, the weather girl from GMTV and Lily Savage.

While 18 girls graduate from "Nancy School", only 12 can progress to the show proper. To whittle the list down, the Nancys had to play Nancy before an audience.

Performance over it was left to Andrew Lloyd Webber to call the girls in one by one into his study.

"You could be Nancy," says Lloyd Webber. So many times did he say it that it began to sound like a code, as if the great impresario was testing the girls to see which one would respond in the desired manner.

And which of them can be the biggest Nancy...