BB FANS

'Josephs' stab rivals in back Sun

JOSEPH HOPEFULS: JASON'S VERDICT


HE'S been there, done that and got the loincloth. So it's no surprise former Joseph Jason Donovan has an opinion on the hopefuls battling it out on Any Dream Will Do.

Jason, 38, took the lead at the London Palladium in the early 90s and avidly follows the contest. The Aussie dad-of-two says: "One of these kids is going to have his dream come true. It's going to be hard work but it's a lot of fun."

But the I'm A Celeb... star, who releases his new single next month, has a chilling warning for the winner. "It's very, very cold in that loincloth," he says.


Here's Jason's verdict on the last seven...

KEITH JACK

HE'S the one to watch. He looks good, sings and acts well and he's come on leaps and bounds. I like his character and his story. The others have their work cut out to beat him.

ROB McVEIGH

AH, Bob the Builder! He's doing a fantastic job, he's a nice guy and it's amazing how far he's come. I just don't know if he's good enough to go the distance given the competiton.

LEWIS BRADLEY

LEWIS is probably the most stereot ypical-looking Joseph out of the whole lot. He's a good singer as well but he faces a big battle with Keith, I think, if he has any hope of winning.

LEE MEAD

HE'S a seasoned performer and it shows. I think Lee might be a bit too polished. The public vote with their hearts and Joseph is about more han just being the best singer and actor.

DANIEL BOYS

VERY accomplished but, as with Lee, might not be as popular as other boys. The public prefers raw talent and someone who's be en on a real journey. He's not as natural as Keith.

BEN ELLIS

BEN has the right look - the girls love him - and a good voice. I'm really glad he's still in. But whether he could handle the fame and the eight shows every week, I just don't know.

CRAIG CHALMERS

A DECENT voice and another goodlooking guy. He looks like a Joseph.He's not quite as strong as some of the other contenders but he's making up for that with his charm.

DOWNLOAD Jason's single Share My World from June 11. Listen to it on http://www.myspace.com/jasondonovanofficial

Joseph hopefuls Dream scream Sun

JOSEPH STAR'S FAMILY HEARTBREAK
Exclusive by Damien Fletcher


HE'S the singing supermarket assistant who's winning the hearts of millions of Joseph fans across Britain.

Down-to-earth Keith Jack - the small lad with the big voice - is emerging as the favourite to win the hit BBC show Any Dream Will Do.

But behind the powerful performances lies a heartache that almost made him turn his back on a musical career - and now drives him on.


In an exclusive interview, Keith's proud parents explain how the shock of losing his grandfather to bone cancer silenced his singing for a year.
Keith Jack

Click on the above image to see Exlusive footage of Keith Jack performing at school.

Dad George reveals: "Keith was just 15 when his grandad George - or Papa, as he knew him - died and you could not get him to sing. It was heartbreaking.

"Keith just bottled up all his grief. I had to keep encouraging him not to give up." "He quit singing completely," says mum Irene, 46. "Papa was his inspiration to sing. It was him that encouraged Keith since he was a little boy.

"Keith and his grandpa were joined at the hip because they both loved singing so much."

Time and the encouragement of his family has paid off and Keith, now 19, has been winning weekly plaudits on Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's talent show.

According to Irene it's the thought of his beloved Papa that injects extra feeling into his songs.

"We've told him to go out there and get to the top, to do it for Papa. That's why he's trying so hard," she reveals.

The show's prize - playing the lead in a multi-million-pound West End production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - is a world away from Keith's life in Dalkeith, Scotland.

Before winning his place on the show, he was working with his mum at the local Tesco as an assistant on the self-service tills.

Irene, who has worked at the store for 19 years in customer services, says Keith has been a performer from the time he discovered singing as a toddler to wooing the girls as a teen.

She says: "All the neighbours on our street knew him as the little singing boy. When he was small he would always be singing nursery rhymes like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

"He loved copying singers from telly, especially opera singers. And when he got older people told him he had a really powerful voice and should become a classically trained singer or think about a career in musicals. We've encouraged him all the way."

As an altar boy, Keith would look forward to singing in the choir at St David's Church, Dalkeith, along with his Papa.

"He needs a huge room with a high ceiling when he sings, because his voice is big," says Irene proudly. "That's why he's so suited to singing in churches, or theatres."

And wherever he goes it seems there is always a willing audience. Even at his old job, where the aisles are now decked with posters of their famous employee.

"He's got a habit of serenading the staff at Tesco," his mum laughs. "If it's quiet in here and the girls are a bit fed-up they'll ask Keith to give them a song - and he always does. They love it."

His vocal talents certainly impressed 18-year-old fellow tillworker Jennifer Clark, who is now his girlfriend.

"We started going out with each other a year ago," says Jennifer. "He got put on the till next to me, we started talking and he said he was a singer.

"He gave me his number and asked me if I wanted to go to a gig, but it turned out he just wanted to see me.

"He phoned me before last week's show and told me that he would be singing Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around for me on Saturday night.

"It was so romantic to know he was singing that for me on television, it made me feel so special."

Despite Keith being holed up with the contestants in East London, the couple are constantly in touch. "I speak to him whenever I can", she says. "We call each other every morning and night on the phone.

"We're all rooting for him because he deserves to win after all his passion and hard work, and what he's been through to get there."

And Keith also has the support of his old school. His former music teacher at St David's High School Phillip Thorne, 55, says: "He's a born performer and he's got a very special quality about his voice, that emotional edge that moves people.

"When his grandfather died I could see it affected him badly, he became so withdrawn. I hoped he would find that enthusiasm again because it was clear he was a gifted singer."

It was Keith's dad, who has split with his mum and re-married, who eventually got Keith to pick up the mic again.

"I would see him at weekends and try to cajole him into it, getting him to go for karaoke competitions", says his dad, a 47-year-old engineer.

Eventually Keith was persuaded to use his talent to raise money for the Macmillan Cancer Charity, organising karaoke nights in his local pub, the Bonnyrigg Rose Club.

Gradually, with more encouragement, he began to enter singing competitions, his family raising the money to fund his travel and accommodation through jumble sales and raffles.

All the hard work paid off. Keith scooped a slew of prizes including a session at Edinburgh talent school Stagequest and a place in Chicago Rock Cafe's national tour after taking part in its Rock Idol competition.

And, at the back of his mind is always the thought of his beloved Papa. Keith's 24-year-old sister Lesley says: "Although he doesn't like to admit it, I believe that's why deep down Keith wants to win.

"Singing's in his blood so I'm so glad he's not turned his back on it.

One of my earliest memories of him was singing in a Christmas concert.

He had this sweet angelic voice. He could never surprise you because he's always singing, so you hear him coming a mile off."

Staff and classmates at Edinburgh's Telford College, where Keith was doing an HNC in musical theatre, are thrilled he's made it to the final seven. His tutor Scott Harrison says: "I became concerned because he started missing classes in March but when he revealed that he'd been progressing through this incredible competition, we were all thrilled.

"Keith is very energetic, a people person. To be in performing arts you've got to like entertaining people, and that's definitely true of him."

Classmate Chloe Webster, 17, says: "Keith's always having a laugh and always performing. We're all so happy he's made it this far."

And when Irene watches tonight on TV, she will be more nervous than ever. "I get so bad that I have to sit on the floor so I don't fall off the chair," she admits. "And I sit on my hands so I can't bite my nails.

"But he's always so confident on stage and I can see that he's determined to do his Papa proud."

Any Dream Will Do is on BBC1 tonight at 6.45pm.
Mirror

DREAMING'S OVERFORROB THE BUILDER People

Joseph Show To Clash With Grease

The BBC has extended talent search show Any Dream Will Do by a week in a move that will see its final go head to head with ITV's Grease is the Word.

Any Dream Will Do, which is looking for a lead to star in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, was originally planned to end on June 2, but will now run until the following Saturday.

It means it will be in direct competition with the last show of ITV’s hunt for a new Sandy and Danny to star in a West End production of Grease.

An extra episode means there will be no need for a double eviction to take place in the next couple of weeks, with one of the six remaining contests due to leave each week before the final three Josephs battle it out on June 9 to walk away with a West End role. waveguide

Lord Webber gets personal Sun

Which Joseph was stripped of his coat of many colours this week? BBC

The dream team


First there was the hit How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Now we're hooked on the weeping Josephs in Any Dream Will Do. But just how did Andrew Lloyd Webber, a composer grown used to criticism, charm the Saturday-night TV audience? Barbara Ellen meets the man who brought the West End into our sitting rooms



On the upper floor of his central London home, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, 59, multi-millionaire composer of productions such as Evita, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and Sunset Boulevard, is sitting, bathed in sunlight, talking about risks. 'I've always liked to take risks,' he says. 'I like to think there is no other producer in London who would do the same things.' He tells me how he once had to put his home on the line for Cats, and more recently that he bought several new theatres, including the Palladium, resulting in a mortgage stretching into tens of millions (now paid off).


Then, of course, there was the risk of defying the British theatre community and going ahead with his decision to cast the leading lady in The Sound of Music by holding a talent show, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, on Saturday-night television. The theatre community, including Equity, was appalled that such methods were being employed to find a West End lead, but Lloyd Webber appears to have been vindicated: not only did he find his Maria (the now acclaimed 23-year-old Connie Fisher), and become rather popular in the process (he now gets lots of fan mail, with people loving his double act with host Graham Norton), but the TV show has also been nominated for a Bafta. Now Lloyd Webber is at it again - looking for a Joseph on Any Dream Will Do, and he doesn't seem to care about the controversy; in fact, he seems to thrive on it.

'The moment we said we were going to do Maria, the entire profession was against it,' remembers Lloyd Webber. 'And I just thought ...' he grins, makes a fist, '"Yes-sss!"'

Considering all the criticism and insults he's received over the years, one can't imagine why Lloyd Webber would ever voluntarily meet a journalist. Though, as it happens, I'm a fan - especially of his earlier work with lyricist Tim Rice. As a child, I used to listen, rapt, to my mother's copies of Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Tell Me on a Sunday, and there can't be many of us who haven't stood on a school stage with a tea towel on our head for a performance of Joseph. Indeed, I consider Lloyd Webber to be the 'coach trip Beethoven', almost single-handedly responsible for keeping ordinary people connected to musical theatre over the years, though it seems to be this very populism that annoys his detractors in the arts.

There are people who support him - in April this year, Nicholas Kenyon, director of the Proms, defended his decision to include Lloyd Webber's work, saying that 'at his best' he was comparable to Beethoven. Others have not been so kind. 'His work is everywhere, but then so is Aids,' said the late Malcolm Williamson, master of the Queen's music. In a notorious (and possibly apocryphal) theatre anecdote, Broadway legend Alan Jay Lerner is alleged to have explained to Lloyd Webber that people took an instant dislike to him because 'It saves time.' Then there has been his media profile: over the years, Lloyd Webber has had a drubbing on many counts - looks, work, wives, politics. (Made a Tory peer in 1997, he was ridiculed for 'doing a Phil Collins' by threatening to leave the country if Labour got in - he tells me he never said any such thing.)

When I speak to Lloyd Webber, he waves away all the media attacks. 'All that kind of thing was happening really when I was married to Sarah Brightman [the ex-Hot Gossip member, who played the first Christine in Phantom]. It's evaporated now.' The uber-Tory thing he finds amusing: 'People always think of me as this "Tory peer". And I think that's very funny because I've voted more times for the government than I've voted Conservative.' Nevertheless, you get the feeling that some of the attacks have left their mark. At The Observer photo session at the newly refurbished Palladium, Lloyd Webber is overheard quipping dryly, 'Would you enjoy being photographed if you looked like me?'

It could also explain why he seems ready to fight to the death rather than accept a compliment. When I can't remember who it was who compared him to Beethoven, he gets very flustered. 'Oh no, very rarely would anybody have said this! I'm a musical-theatre composer, not a symphonist. And I'm really nowhere near any of these people.' Later, when we are discussing his populist appeal, Lloyd Webber finally concedes that he has some ('I've always been very lucky to have good grass-roots support'), but only after some furious umm-ing, ahh-ing and fidgeting. It's all a far cry from the 'self-aggrandising', 'superior', 'smug' Lloyd Webber I've been reading about in his cuttings. You don't take compliments very well, do you? I'm finally forced to remark. 'No,' he says. 'I find them very difficult.' In the end, says Lloyd Webber, he shares Duke Ellington's view: 'There are only two types of music - good and bad.'

Arriving at his Belgravia town house (he has homes all over the world, including his country pile, Sydmonton, also run as a stud farm by his wife, Madeleine), I am shown into an extremely grand lobby, with walls covered in pre-Raphaelite art, and a huge staircase. Lloyd Webber is rich, very rich. With an estimated fortune of £750m, he is placed second in the current Music Rich List, beating Paul McCartney but lagging behind Clive Calder, the South African who founded the Zomba Music Group. All of which is emphasised when Lloyd Webber appears - sweeping down the staircase - and directs me into a lift. As we're zooming up, he explains how the lift was a solution to some architectural dilemma or other. I nod away in what I hope is an 'interested and informed' manner, but I'm not really listening. I'm thinking: he has a lift in his house - how posh is that!

We settle in to a large, airy room. Though hospitable (Do I want some water? Am I comfortable?), it soon becomes apparent that Lloyd Webber has the shy person's tic of not looking you straight in the eye. However, when he warms up he is good company. You can still sense the 12-year-old 'theatre spod' who sent Richard Rodgers a fan letter, thereby earning himself an invite to a preview of The Sound of Music. At one point, Lloyd Webber describes the Palladium as 'one of those buildings you could actually eat'.

Moreover, he is very happy laughing along about the now notorious 'crying Josephs' on Any Dream. Some of them seem to spend entire episodes in tears. No one's complaining - it makes for brilliantly camp TV - but what's going on? The Marias never blubbed so pathetically. 'We thought at the beginning that the boys would be tremendously stiff-upper-lipped about it all. But then it was ...' he smiles archly. 'Well, you wouldn't send this lot to the Falklands.'

What about the Equity furore that greeted Maria? (Since Any Dream the BBC has also been criticised for over-promoting Lloyd Webber's musicals.) His response is that he has been proved right - Fisher, dubbed 'our Will Young' by Graham Norton, is now feted as a rising star. 'And I probably wouldn't have got to see her in the normal run of things,' says Lloyd Webber. The Marias are doing well - Aoife Mulholland, the 'Irish Maria', has taken over a couple of Fisher's shows. Moreover, the takings, not just for his shows (Maria generated pre-bookings of £12.8m for The Sound of Music) but across the board in musical theatre, were up by 10 per cent last year.

'I'm always looking for new ways to bring a new audience to musical theatre,' says Lloyd Webber, adding that he's now considering the internet. 'You've got to be involved in what's going on right now.' He thinks revivals such as Joseph aren't guaranteed money-spinners anyway, and that the real point is to attract audiences to musical theatre and promote young performers. 'I've always loved working with young artists,' he says. 'I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for that. I don't need to do it, after all. For me, it's all about working with kids, bringing them through. It's what I love.'

Lloyd Webber is the first to admit that his becoming 'TV box office' (Any Dream is trouncing ITV's Grease is the Word) is a turn-up for the books. He almost didn't do Maria. 'I'm not natural television.' And although he now adores Norton, he had initial misgivings. 'When my ex-wife [Brightman] appeared on his show, they'd discussed a certain part of my anatomy.' As Brightman was more than complimentary, you'd think he would have loved that. 'Well I didn't,' says Lloyd Webber. 'It was the week my son started boarding school and I thought, "Oh my God!"'

Certainly the shows have transformed Lloyd Webber's public image: he's suddenly looking rather cuddly, kindly advising the Josephs and chortling away when Norton ribs him. When I speak to Norton, he tells me: 'The reason I think it's working is that he's just himself. Anyone else would have gone into it and tried to be the new Simon Cowell. But Andrew Lloyd Webber is Andrew Lloyd Webber and, hate him or like him, you've got to respect his opinion.' Norton also thinks that, maybe for the first time, Lloyd Webber is showing the public his true self. 'With the show you can see that he's not at all this aloof, remote maestro figure - he's actually just funny and nice.'

For his part, Lloyd Webber admits that he's enjoying 'being differently received. And I'm pleased that people can see I do quite like to have a laugh in life.' However, he adds: 'I was not put on this planet to do reality TV. The day job calls. I've decided to do a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. It's taken me 11 years to come to this conclusion. I've got to write it now.' It appears that since putting aside an attempt to turn the Russian novel The Master and Margarita into a musical, Lloyd Webber has felt ready to take up the challenge of the new Phantom. 'As you get older you find you don't suddenly say, "Yes, I'll do it." You have to really want to do it.' The Phantom sequel will be his biggest test yet: 'The most dangerous thing I've done in my entire career. Far more dangerous than any TV,' Lloyd Webber grins, 'to take on the Phantom again!'

In some ways, Lloyd Webber is as complicated and hidden as the Phantom. One thing he doesn't mind discussing, unusually for a rich person, is money. He has described himself in the past as a 'catastrophic businessman'. Recently, as well as having to pay off the mortgages for the theatres, he's decided against selling his Really Useful Company, instead buying out the venture capitalists and becoming independent again. 'It cost me a fortune,' he says. How much? 'I can't remember exactly, but we're about £130m in debt right now.' He sighs. 'Just don't believe the Rich List.'

However, rather ludicrously for someone who's written 14 musicals and produced countless others, Lloyd Webber denies being driven: 'Anybody who knows me knows that I don't think about anything from one day to another.' He also sidesteps a question about whether he is a 'control freak' (a running joke on Any Dream), pointing out that he has about 36 productions showing around the world at any one time. 'Once it's given to the director, the director is the control freak.' When I ask Lloyd Webber which adjectives best describe him, he looks startled. 'I don't know. Somebody who has so many different interests in so many different things ... I suppose the word to describe myself is incomprehensible.' Does the 'incomprehensible' Lloyd Webber get much time to think about himself? 'No. And thank God I don't. I wouldn't want to do that.'

Lloyd Webber's childhood, growing up in South Kensington, was musically driven. His mother was a music teacher, his father a director of the London College of Music, and his brother Julian became a world-respected cellist. Something of a solitary child, when Lloyd Webber wasn't composing music he was wandering the streets, looking at architecture - churches in particular - something he still enjoys to this day. However, it wasn't until he gave up his place at Oxford University and took up with Rice that his career began in earnest.

After Lloyd Webber split from Rice, he went on to write Cats, Phantom, Sunset Boulevard and Bombay Dreams, and various others that were not so well received, such as Whistle Down the Wind and The Beautiful Game, a musical about football, written with Ben Elton. Still, over the years, you couldn't help but wonder, why doesn't he get back with Rice? Is there some feud? 'Sadly, there has never been a feud,' says Lloyd Webber. 'Very sadly, we have been great friends for a very long time.' He points out that Rice has been enjoying a lucrative tenure with Disney. Moreover: 'Tim is no lover of musicals. Tim admits it: he hates musicals.' Despite this, Lloyd Webber and Rice have written some new songs for Joseph together and, reveals Lloyd Webber, Rice has even threatened to make an appearance on Any Dream

As the interview draws to a close, I ask Lloyd Webber if he is shy. 'Yes, I am quite shy. But when I do get to know people I'm very jolly.' At the height of the media attacks his main concern was that he thought the criticism unfair on Brightman, his second wife, with whom he remains close friends. In fact he has remained friends with both his ex-wives. With two grown-up children from his first marriage, and three children with Madeleine, they have all even spent Christmases together.

'It's something I've never really understood - if you're close to someone, something has happened in the relationship that's very important. And if you are a composer, and a romantic, like I am, there was something in that romance that you can never, ever forget. And to suddenly say that's gone, it's idiotic. Ben [Elton] and I were talking about this the other day - the fact that no child was born to hate. Love, at the end of the day, is all we have.'

Does he like women?

'Oh yes I do. I prefer them in the end.'

It's time to go, to get back in the lift and leave Lloyd Webber alone to wrestle with his demons - or, should one say, Phantoms? 'Who is going to be the Phantom?' he muses at one point. 'Who is going to be Christine? I'm sure as hell not going on reality TV to find out ...' he pauses ... 'necessarily.' When we get to the bottom floor he walks me to the door and leaves me with a parting thought: 'At the end of the day, it all gets back to that thing about how, as you get older, you really have to do only those things you really want to do in life.' He smiles. 'Nothing less will do.' [url-http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2081836,00.html]Observer

Delivering the fun factor on BBC1's far more compelling ratings winner Any Dream Will Do, witty Graham Norton is no slave to the autocue.

And the search for Joseph exudes enthusiasm and a kind of innocent charm.

OK, it's monumentally gay. But so are West End musicals.

Oddly likeable Andrew Lloyd Webber couldn't resist rubbing salt into his ailing rivals' wounds.

Outlining the secret of the Beeb's success, his lordship explained: "Our show is about nurture, not torture."

And there you have it.

Sundaymirror

Any Dream Will Do

The spotlight's on the final five. Find out which of the remaining hopefuls will sing for the last time tonight.

Is anyone else falling hook line and sinker for the gorgeous Lee Mead??

What a talent!!!

Yes Vagabond. I totally agree with your assessment of Lee.

A relative got me into the show, and although I didn't want to like Lee at the beginning - I prefer to support an underdog in these things - his talent and star quality stood out a mile. He's so versatile, and he really conveys the meaning of the songs.

My ideal scenario would be for Lee to win, but for Keith to play Joseph as a boy, Lee to play him as a man! Keith would provide the fairytale story of the guy who went from doing the trollies in Tesco to starring in the West End.

It's the only t.v. programme I've watched in ages, but missed it last night, and will be away for the next two Saturdays, so that's the last I'll see of Lee for a while.

(I also find I'm thinking of Andrew Lloyd Webber as a kind of benevolent teddy bear - and watching Graham Norton is kind of like a trip down memory lane - I used to love when his show followed the BB highlights show - and he would make jokes about the HM's - all seems very innocent now)

DON'T CALL US GAY ..IT'S JUST NOT NICE
EXCLUSIVE We're not camp at all say Joseph boys



THEY'VE stripped down to pose in skimpy loincloths. They've had millions hooked on their twinkle-toed dance routines. And they're most famous for fighting over a technicolour dreamcoat.

The wannabes fighting to be in theatre legend Andrew Lloyd Webber's new Joseph musical have developed an image camper than a row of tents.

But in an exclusive Sunday Mirror interview, the Any Dream Will Do finalists rapped: "Don't call us gay."

As I watched the final five rehearse last night's show, stripper Craig Chalmers led the campaign to toughen up their image.

Blond Craig, 25, who does raunchy strip routines with all-male dance troupe G-Force, stormed: "All of us have gone through life being called gay because we like performing. To be putting on a show, doing what we want and being laughed at and called camp is just not nice."

Drama student Ben Ellis said: "I like beer, women and sport. I don't think that's camp. Apart from Lewis we've all got girlfriends so that rules out any assumptions people have made."

Tesco shelf-stacker Keith Jack said: "If you look at people who have played Joseph, like Jason Donovan and Phillip Schofield, they had no shortage of girls desperate to sleep with them."

Actor Lee Mead added: "There's nothing wrong with being camp, but we're not. We just love performing. And if people think that's camp then that's their problem, not mine."

The lads - gasping from another high-octane dance rehearsal of Dirty Dancing hit Do You Love Me? - sat down to tell me about life away from the glitz and glamour in the Joseph mansion.

They have been locked away in a secret West London pad since making it through to the final 12 back in April.

So how are they coping without female company? Craig, 25, admitted he is struggling without girlfriend Sarah, who he met when she came to see him perform with G-Force. He said: "It is frustrating. I'm finding it very hard."

But clean-cut teenager Keith, 19, isn't only missing the physical side of his relationship. He said: "I just miss my girlfriend's company. I'd just like her to be here with me.

"Craig and I haven't been home for six weeks now. We're from Scotland, so it's more difficult for friends and family to come to the show. I feel like I'm a long way from home."

Moments later the lads are back on stage going through the moves for their group number backed by a pair of gorgeous girl dancers.

As the producer shouts 'cut' they huddle to practise their note-perfect harmonies again.

Their dedication cannot be faulted. With just two weeks to go until the hit BBC1 series finishes on June 9 - the competition is clearly hotting up.

Away from the studio the boys have opted for a life of domestic bliss rather than venting their frustration through rock and roll-style room trashing.

Drama student Lewis Bradley, 17, a pupil at London's prestigious Italia Conti stage school said: "We might be on TV but we're not divas. We do our own washing, cooking and shopping. Lee is in charge of the dinner and it's steak most nights.

"We go to the supermarket like everyone else but one at a time or we get mobbed. I've heard they've got a maid and housekeeper in the Grease house, so we're missing out. We could do with a woman's touch."

And with that they're off into the bright lights with high kicks, stage smiles and jazz hands.

Who said musicals were camp?

CRAIG CHALMERS

25, FROM EDINBURGH

"I LIKE my beer, my women and my sport... I don't think that's camp, is it? And all but one of us have got girlfriends."

LEE MEAD

25, FROM SOUTHEND, ESSEX

"THERE'S nothing wrong with being camp. But I'm afraid we're not. None of us are camp guys. We just love performing."

BEN ELLIS

18, FROM SCARBOROUGH, N YORKS

"WE have gone through life being called gay because we like per forming. Being laughed at and called camp is just not nice."

LEWIS BRADLEY

17 FROM MIDDLESBROUGH, TEESSIDE

"WE might be on TV but we're not divas. We still do our own washing, cooking and go to the supermarket like everyone else."

KEITH JACK

19 FROM MIDLOTHIAN, SCOTLAND

"If you look at people who've played Joseph in the past, like Jason Donovan and Phillip Schofield, they had no shortage of girls after them."
By Lara Gould Tv Reporter Lara.Gould@Sundaymirror.Co.Uk

27 May 2007
BULLYING NO DENT TO LEWIS DREAMS

TV JOSEPH wannabe Lewis Bradley refused to give up on his dream of winning the stage role despite CRUEL BULLYING.

The 17-year-old was taunted and given nose-busting beatings while growing up because he preferred singing and dancing to football.

The blond teenager from Middlesbrough - who reached the last five on the BBC's Any Dream Will Do - revealed: "I have worked so hard to be here.

People