 IT SEEMS only natural that Abi Finley should take a starring role in the stage musical Fame. After all, it is a show about young people fighting for their place in the showbusiness spotlight, and that is exactly what Abi did on national television for several weeks last year. She was one of the contestants in the reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, in which Andrew Lloyd Webber searched for a performer to star in his West End show, The Sound of Music. The Prestwich-born singer/actress came within touching distance of taking the top spot, but was finally voted out in a sing-off with best friend Aoife Mulholland. Connie Fisher went on to win and take the role of Maria in the West End show. But that was not the end of the story for 24-year-old Abi, rather the beginning. “I’ve been really lucky and not stopped yet since the television show,” she tells me when the Fame tour stopped off in Northampton. Once her participation in the show ended, Sir Tim Rice – the sometime songwriting partner of Lord Lloyd Webber – rang her up and offered her a role in his show Blondel. “He was planning a revival and wanted to put it on in a smaller venue, The Pleasance, in Islington,” explains Abi. The medieval romp set around the Crusades has always been a favourite of Sir Tim’s, and apparently it went down well in Islington. “It was good fun and Andrew Lloyd Webber came to see it on opening night, along with lots of other interesting people. It was all quite wonderful.” But the day she found out she had the Blondel role, she also signed with a good agent. It was this agent who put her forward for a role in Fame. “I auditioned for it and managed to get that,” she says with a hint of surprise. “It was funny because at one point I was rehearsing Fame during the day and performing in Blondel at night. I imagined getting confused and walking into the Crusades with my leg warmers . . .” The tour of Fame, a new production, began in January and will end in August. It appears at the Liverpool Empire on Monday, June 18, for a week-long run. The stage musical is based on the original 1980 film and later television series but with more or less a new musical score. It concerns itself with the lives, loves, hopes and fears of students at the New York High School for the Performing Arts. Abi is taking the leading role of would-be actress Serena. She has been to a theatre school herself – London’s Central School of Speech and Drama – but it was nothing like the performing arts school in the show. | 
