The Cher Show hits Brighton - "you really see Cher become her own woman"

Debbie Kurup (The Bodyguard, Girl From The North Country), Danielle Steers (Bat Out of Hell, SIX) and Millie O’Connell (SIX, Rent) play Cher at different points in her life as the show comes to Theatre Royal Brighton for two weeks from Tuesday to Saturday, November 1-12.

Debbie is Star, Danielle is Lady and Millie is Babe as we see Cher go from a young child with big dreams, the shy daughter of an Armenian American truck driver, to the dizzying heights of global stardom.

Cher takes the audience by the hand and introduces them to the influential people in her life, from her mother and Sonny Bono to fashion designer and costumier Bob Mackie. Along the way, you get 35 of her biggest hits including If I Could Turn Back Time, I Got You Babe, Strong Enough, The Shoop Shoop Song and Believe.

“It's a really interesting concept,” Debbie says. “We all work together to tell the story together. My character starts the show and is having a bit of a confidence crisis and she draws on her two younger selves to rediscover that confidence. She is having a moment of crisis wondering what it was all about and whether it is all worth it and she draws upon the two younger versions of herself to answer some of those questions. Obviously it's a great device to go back in time and tell the story but it also gives you perspective. If you have got the young Cher you get the two older versions remembering but if the focus is on my character, the older Cher, you have got the two younger versions looking effectively at their future. There are many times in life when I would want to go back and put my arms around my younger self and tell myself that it's going to be OK and that's what this is. That's what you get. You get the innocence of Babe and you see her from a young age going through the teen years and finding herself as a woman and you've got Lady who is really finding the stardom with Sonny and Cher but you've also got the marital problems and then going through the divorce. And then you see my character in the 90s, a character who has still got a lot of affection for Sonny. There is a beautiful elegy moment when you can see what he still means to her. She found her feet with him and says that she never fitted in until she found Sonny. Through him she found fame and notoriety and got to the point where she was a superstar.

“You have got the younger Chers looking up to the older Cher and thinking this is what I'm going to become. Through all her life experiences she gains the inner strength. My chunk is really Act Two and you really see Cher become her own woman at a time when she becomes a real Hollywood heavyweight as well and wins an Oscar.And yet there are the doubts: “I think the most interesting thing about superstardom and fame and talent is that you are not really a true performer unless you have the wobbles. You might get a wonderful job but then you will start thinking ‘Oh no! I'm really rubbish!’ It’s those insecurities. And it’s those insecurities that mean that you're always striving to be better.”