Results tagged “celebrity Andrew Lloyd Webber Maria” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

What is it with all this celebrity malarkey? Is it just me or do most people have slightly more interest in watching puddles dry than seeing pictures of minor singers, actors, soap stars and the like going out for a newspaper or shopping in Waitrose . . . or, put another way, doing the ordinary everyday things that any normal person would do.

Bit patronising of us really isn't it? You mean TV stars know how to work a supermarket trolley as well? And they can buy a newspaper on their own,without any help? Aren't they clever!

This country is obsessed with celebrity - a term which covers anyone who has ever been on TV, or, let's be honest, even near anyone who has been on TV - and that includes any of the shopping channels.

There are so many celebrities thesedays we must be getting close to I'm known by someone other than my mum,get me out of here.

I make no bones about blaming my own profession, the media, for feeding this obsession either. They are happily chucking buns in the cage at every opportunity. It is cheap, easy copy and pictures to fill pages and screens at minimal effort and cost - a management dream. The old Fourth Estate was sold off for development years ago.

What poked this particular bed of embers into flame was the news that Andrew Lloyd Webber, who seems to be picking his West End leads through televised karaoke contests these days, has now found a new wheeze.

Find a new Maria, do a deal with Channel 4 and bung her in Hollyoaks for four months as a wannabe West End star who eventually gets a chance to audition for . . . wait for it . . . Andrew Lloyd Webber. You would never believe it but she then gets the role she got in reality months ago.

It blurs reality and fiction says the producer - and makes money for all concerned. The saddest thing of all is that a significant number of those taking out bank loans to buy a couple of tickets for the West End show will go there believing she really is a Hollyoaks star who got the role in an audition in a soap they already think is real life - some sort of long running documentary. The worrying bit is that they are also allowed to vote.