Young musicians to support X Factor winner at gig

As Jenny Milner says, you usually wait a couple of weeks for a decision and end up with a polite no.
Wings Productions will be supporting X Factor winner Sam BaileyWings Productions will be supporting X Factor winner Sam Bailey
Wings Productions will be supporting X Factor winner Sam Bailey

But this time, the deal was done in just a matter of hours.

It’s official. Wings Productions, an amateur musical theatre company from Shoreham, will be supporting 2013 X Factor winner Sam Bailey when she plays the Assembly Hall in Worthing on November 19.

Five members of Wings Productions – three girls, two boys – will have 20 minutes to play with. They will be meeting on Saturday to decide just what they are going to do.

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Jenny said: “We have decided possibly on doing a female trio from The Little Mermaid, and the boys have decided on a duet, either comic or serious, and then we will do a couple of group numbers, possibly Miss Saigon or The Lion King. We have built up such a big repertoire.”

There may well be a few nerves involved: “None of us have ever done anything like this before, and to get this support is brilliant. The main aim is to get ourselves known. We will just have to be thinking of the bigger picture.

“All of the profits for Wings Productions’ shows go to Children in Need and we are supporting Sam to also gain some publicity for our own show next July where again, our proceeds will go to Children in Need.

“The group was started in 2006 or 2007 by a man called Des Young. It became apparent in about 2011 that he had some health problems, and a group of us offered to take over. He still helps us produce and he is still the founder and dips in and out, but there are now four of us that run the company.

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“We do shows every two years. They are just musical theatre revue shows, dancing and songs from across the board musicals, with all the proceeds going to Children in Need,” explains Jenny, a second-year mature student in film at Sussex University.

“Since we took over, I took it upon myself to ask celebrities to record good-luck messages for our shows, to encourage people to come along. We have had James McAvoy, Davina McCall, Noel Edmonds. We had the entire cast of Miss Saigon do one for us…

“And Sam Bailey was one of the people I contacted. I emailed through her tour manager.”

One thing led to another, and within hours the group had been offered a support slot for Sam’s Worthing gig – all the more appropriate given that Jenny works in the box office for Worthing Theatres.

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“Usually it takes a couple of weeks for someone to politely say no, but I got a reply at 10 in the morning, and by 6.30 that day, I had got the go ahead!”

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