And the winner is….Julie Andrews

21-09-2006

Aah, go on admit it...you'll miss it now it's gone...the weekly TV search to find a suitable Maria for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sound of Music. Pete Millington was a johnny come lately...

The first I knew about the latest cult television talent competition show, which apparently had the nation gripped for weeks on end, was when I heard local radio presenter Danny Kelly interviewing one of the shows judges last Friday afternoon...…literally 36 hours before the big vote on prime time national tv would decide who the lucky winner was.

From what I could make out the BBC had been trying to assist Andrew Lloyd Webber to select the leading lady for his forthcoming West End stage version of The Sound of Music

Mr Kelly seemed adamant that the winning lady should be a local lass named Siobhan, though it was also apparent that she was up against stiff opposition from two other strong contenders

The next morning's newspapers were full of the story of the intense rivalry between the three remaining girls

Two of them, including our Siobhan I was distraught to read, were claiming that throughout the build up to the final show, both BBC producers as well as Mr Lloyd Webber himself

had been showing blatant rivalry to the third contender… one Connie Fisher

According to the Daily Mail, Connie was clearly “Andrew's chosen one”, she had been incredibly well edited throughout the eight-week run, with flattering camera angles and favourable backstage training highlights.

Lloyd Webber had constantly sung her praises, her outfits were more sparkly than those given to the other girls and she was given songs to sing that flattered her voice.

Hmmmm…read between the lines as you so feel inclined…

Not normally prone to waste my Saturday nights watching such inane drivel, on this occasion I found myself too intrigued to resist

Sadly by the time I moved into couch potato position I had already missed the bit where our Siobhan had been sent packing back to the mountain convent

But I was just in time for the grand finale, where just two would-be Maria's finally got to scrap it out.One was attractive brunette Helena with the fabulous make-up and the great voice...the other was Julie Andrews.

Well ok, she may well have called herself Connie, but let's face it, it was really Julie Andrews wasn't she?

In the ensuing climatic moments, two of the three judges declared that they had always fancied Julie (aka Connie) as the winner, whilst the middle judge, quite obviously feeling a bit sorry for the lovely looking ‘also ran' Helena, gave an unconvincing nod in that general direction…

Then came the real moment of truth, Mr Lloyd Webber came clean about the fact that he had picked Julie Andrews from 600,000 would-be candidates about 12 months back…

Oh yes… and then they read out the results of the public vote… strangely, the public also picked … Julie Andrews

Of course, it's as plain as the yodel in a goatherd's throat that Andrew Lloyd Webber knows best. It's his flaming musical for God's sake, do you think for one moment he's going to pick one of the girls from The Corrs when he spotted Julie Andrews in the queue about 12 months ago?

So why didn't he just pick her in the first ruddy place and save us all a lot of wasted Saturday nights waving So Long Farewell to yet another long stream of broken hearts and shattered dreams?

Don't we have enough of this particular Chick Flick on our tv sets every Boxing Day without putting us through it during the rest of the year?

Or am I missing something here? After all, the only bit I ever liked as a kid was when the Nazi storm troopers arrived…