Andrew Lloyd Webber with Jodie Prenger, Connie Fisher, Lee Mead and Danielle Hope

This week’s Hello! magazine features a unique photoshoot with Andrew Lloyd Webber and some of the talented young performers, including Any Dream Will Do winner Lee Mead, who have achieved West End success after being discovered in his BBC shows.

Extracts from the article appear below:

In an exclusive HELLO! photoshoot and interview, the theatre impresario and world-renowned composer is joined by Jodie Prenger and his three other winners (Connie Fisher, Lee Mead and Danielle Hope) as well as other contestants whose dream to star on the West End stage became reality.

The impressive roll call includes Niamh Perry, who competed in I’d Do Anything and is now appearing in Love Never Dies, Rachel Tucker, who reached the semi-final of the same show and now plays Elphaba in Wicked, and Lauren Samuels who landed the role of Sandy in Grease just weeks after the Over the Rainbow final.

“They’ve become like my children,” smiles Andrew. “It’s a great joy to have discovered so many talented people.”

While reality shows such as The X Factor have been criticised for their treatment of contestants, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s support goes beyond the programmes.

“I’m not interested in making a TV programme where we tell people, ‘You’re rubbish,’” he says. “It’s much more interesting to me to try to get the best out of them and I think that’s what made our shows a little different.”

In the case of Over the Rainbow winner Danielle and runner-up Sophie Evans, Andrew has made sure they get extra training, arranging for them both to take courses at Chiswick’s Arts Educational school next year. “I can pretty much predict where some of them will go over the years,” adds Andrew. “I would be very surprised if Danielle doesn’t emerge as a major actress. I’ve always thought there is something very special about that girl.”

While you’d be hard pressed to find a West End show without a reality TV star in it now, the programmes have not always been greeted with warmth. “Before Maria, we came up against enormous opposition from the theatre establishment,” Andrew tells HELLO! magazine. “But we have proved them wrong and the television shows have attracted a huge new audience to musical theatre and the West End in general.”

SEE THE FULL EXCLUSIVE STORY IN HELLO! MAGAZINE, OUT NOW.