Monday, October 5, 2009

Cowell's mum stunned by raunchy birthday shows

Monday, October 05, 2009 - 02:04 PM

Simon Cowell’s mother was left stunned at his 50th birthday party by the raunchy stage shows put on for the guests.

The music mogul celebrated reaching the landmark age with a star-studded bash at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire, England, and entertainment included a raunchy cabaret act involving sex toys and suggestive costumes..

Simon’s friend and publicist Max Clifford told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper that a highlight of the bash was watching an embarrassed Cowell attempt to explain the onstage antics to his 82-year-old mother Julie, who was accompaned to the party by a priest friend.

Other guests at the £2m (€2.18m) bash included Kate Moss, Simon’s ‘X Factor’ judges Louis Walsh, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue and his ex-girlfriend Terri Seymour.

Revellers were treated to a lavish meal and £220,000 (€240,000) was spent on wine.

Instead of presents, Simon asked his family and friends to donate money to children’s hospice charity Chase.

Remember the girl whom Simon Cowell described as the singing version of Marmite? With a voice some called soulful and others called strangled, 17-year-old Diana Vickers was last seen sobbing on stage at the X Factor semi-finals last year, voted off amid pitiless mockery and gossip.

Well, forget all that. Nine months on, Vickers is the happiest teenager I’ve seen, jabbering breathlessly about her new life. On top of a record deal, the Blackburn-born Vickers, now 18, has landed the lead in the West End revival of Jim Cartwright’s The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, the part made famous by Jane Horrocks both on stage and in the 1998 film.

“If someone had told me that I would be doing this a couple of months ago I’d have said no way,” she grins, pretty and casual in a floaty white blouse and little red skirt, with a tousled blonde mop of hair. “I was busy working on my music, but it was something I couldn’t turn down.”

Cartwright brought the producer Nica Burns and the director Terry Johnson to see Vickers on the X Factor Live tour, and they decided she was the perfect LV — the girl who, with an alcoholic mother and an abusive boyfriend, finds solace in impersonating iconic singers such as Shirley Bassey. Can Vickers relate? “Yeah, she doesn’t want anyone to hear her and that was me a couple of years ago, and even now at karaoke,” Vickers muses, “but then I’m quite a bubbly girl and she hardly even speaks.”

Vickers stars alongside Lesley Sharp and Marc Warren, both experienced actors. “It is a scary thing to do, but I have learnt a lot — I feel like I’m a little puppy and I’m learning everything and they give me little rewards,” she says with a giggle.

The role has widened her musical horizons too. “When I started, I didn’t know who Marianne Faithful was, or Edith Piaf. I’ve always loved Dusty Springfield though.”

Vickers wanted to be a singer from the age of 10, when a teacher at her private all-girls school, Westholme in Blackburn, spotted her in the choir. “I was always the lead in the school plays, but sort of knew I was going to be a singer,” she says.

Vickers’s mum encouraged her to audition for The X Factor when she was 15, but she held off until after her AS levels. “I knew I was ready when I felt lost — I was in this little town trying to decide what to do with my life. My friend was like, ‘Right, you’re going to do The X Factor.’ ”

But, of course, Cowell-created fame comes at a cost. It started with some light name-calling; hippy, for never wearing shoes on stage, and “Claw Girl”, for the strange hand movements that Vickers made while performing. Then came the throat infection that prevented her from singing on one of the live shows, and the relationship with her fellow contestant Eoghan Quigg, the fluffy-haired 16-year-old from Derry whom Vickers was snapped kissing — despite having a boyfriend back home. Her emotional exit then inspired rumours of a bust-up with her mentor, Cheryl Cole.

“Those rumours were absolute rubbish. I left the show on good terms with Cheryl and the day after I even went to hers, and she sent me a nice little card and prezzie on my birthday.”

And Eoghan? “Oh, it’s a complicated little story,” she sighs. “He was basically my everything on that show, and we just were each other’s rock. We had a very brief thing but we were never boyfriend and girlfriend.” So he’s not pining away for her, back in Derry? “Is he hell as! He’s 17!”

The X Factor has opened many doors for her, including a glamorous new home in London. She first moved into Sloane Avenue in Chelsea, but discovered the flat was haunted (“a little boy was living there, I could just sense it”, and so moved to a new apartment near Battersea.

Vickers is single, having split up with her high-school boyfriend, Chris, after leaving X Factor. “I’ve changed a lot, and God, I just wouldn’t have time for a boyfriend now.”

Around a busy schedule of rehearsals, she spends her time hanging out with girlfriends — including her fellow contestant Ruth Lorenzo — dipping in and out of parties, shopping and ordering in Thai or sushi.

“I’m absolutely knackered. It’s really hectic and you have to be really balanced and comfortable in yourself, and happy. And really I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe I’m only 18,” she says wide-eyed.

Her debut album, on RCA — co-written by Guy Sigsworth, a writer and producer for the likes of Madonna and Britney Spears — is on hold until after the play, and will be released in the spring. “Acting is great, and one day I might like to get into it seriously, but music is my love and that’s what I have to do next,” she insists.

But first, she’s focusing on making a successful stage debut. She has faced the X Factor judges, but can Vickers hack the West End audience? “I know I’m going to be judged, but it doesn’t faze me any more,” she says with a smile. “I can’t wait until opening night.”

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice is at the Vaudeville Theatre, London WC2, (0844 4124663 ) from Thurs to Jan 30