I'd Do Anything / Editor / 30 May 2008 / Leave a comment

The red carpet beckons for one of Jodie, Jessie or Samantha, but who will it be? Let Paul Sorene guide you through the odds for the final of I'd Do Anything

Bonnets off and smelling salts all round to the I'D Do Anything judges for listing to back-to-back renditions of Rachel and Samantha singing Memory from Cats.

Your writer, the Anorak, once functioned as a ticket ripper (official) at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, where Cats played for many, many, many, many years. The opening strains to Memory were my cue to take up a seat in the auditorium and direct people to the exit lest they feel woozy.

How many times Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has heard this dirge we can only fear, but the effects of Memory exposure are surely manifest in his pointy gestures and the odd neck-elongating pout he has made his own.

Songs sung, and it was time for Webber to wave goodbye to Rachel. "I'm absolutely devastated that I didn't make it into the final. After getting into the last 12 that was my aim," she said.

Rachel was an early favourite to win. But now she's gone. And Jodie at [2.14] is the hot front runner.

How this happened, we can only put down to geography (Jodie is the only survivor from the British mainland and so should pull in the votes) and the fact that the British like a plucky, average enthusiast who has a go.

After all, who needs talent when you look like you're having fun?

Says Jodie on her reaction to news that she had made it to the final: "It felt like my heart had stopped. My feet wouldn't work properly and I felt like I was going to be sick. I didn't know whether to cry or not. You go through so many emotions."

Once more the Anorak's mind journeys back those dimly lit says in Drury Lane.

But what of the other two? There's Jessie, who has been in the top three on the Betfair markets for the entire contest. Now at [2.92], Jessie has attracted a decent fan base, and would make a good stage performer.

And there's Samantha, the outsider. At [4.2], Samantha offers the value bet, but she can only all upon a small vote in her Isle of Man locale, and is so much better and younger than Jodie that she unnerves the voting public and is thus unlikely to win...

Tags: I'd Do Anything, Jessie, Jodie, Samantha