WHEN Diana Vickers was an X Factor finalist, she became famous for not wearing shoes.
She was terrified that a stiletto-related mishap would scupper her chances in front of Simon Cowell and co.
But now, Diana’s starring in The Rocky Horror Show as Janet, who starts off demure but turns into a bit of a saucy minx, which involves her strutting her stuff in skyscraping platforms.
“The reason I didn’t wear heels on X Factor was that I was doing a little bit of dancing and I fell flat on my face in rehearsals!” admits the bubbly 25-year-old.
“But for this, I have to wear heels, and I have to dance in heels.
“I can move — I did ballet and I did tap, and I can move on a night out — but when you’re with musical theatre-trained people who have been doing it for years and are pirouetting around the room, it’s quite intimidating.
“So on this tour, when it comes to the dancing bit, I do get worried!”
Tottering heels are positively tame compared to some of the Rocky Horror costumes, but the audiences often dress even more outrageously.
“Sixty-year-old men in stockings and suspenders!” Diana laughs.
“It’s great fun, but I sometimes lose concentration after the intro when Janet takes a back seat and you can get side-tracked checking out what people are wearing.”
It’s a big change from Diana’s stage debut, starring as the shy singer in Little Voice.
“It’s very different, but there’s maybe an echo of Little Voice in the early Janet, which is quite nice,” adds Diana.
“But I did The Duck House after I did Little Voice and that was a big transition as it was in the West End and I was basically rubbing cheese on my co-star Simon Shepherd’s nipples, dressed in a basque.
“So basically in my two stage roles prior to this, I’d done both extremes and now I’m combining them!”
Diana was a semi-finalist, alongside boyband JLS, in the 2008 X Factor which was won by Alexandra Burke.
“It was a really strong series, and I think it was Cheryl Cole’s first, so it was all quite fresh,” she says.
“I was 16 when it started. I was in Blackburn at an all-girls school living in a tiny town and next thing I knew, it was: ‘Bye Mum, bye Dad’ and I’m living at No 1 Sloane Square and going to Cannes to stay with Cheryl and meeting Kate Moss, my idol.
“People think with these shows you can sit back and see what happens, but it’s really hard work, nobody hands you anything because you’ve been on The X Factor — I had to audition three times for Janet.”
Diana’s co-star Norman Pace plays the Narrator.
I assumed Norman would be Frank N Furter, the character who swans about in a basque seducing anything that moves.
“I would have been a great Frank — 30 years ago!” laughs one half of the Hale and Pace comedy duo.
Norman wouldn’t have had a problem with Frank’s lingerie, either, as he says: “When I worked with Gareth, he was so macho, he didn’t want to dress as a woman even though his moustache was funny in drag.
“So any sketches would involve me dressing up which I gladly embraced, but with the unfortunate consequence that I looked like my mother!
“But Rocky Horror is so iconic, and the audience knows it backwards.
“The only other time in my career I’ve had a similar experience was when I did Shakespeare and people were sat with the book open, following your delivery.
“You didn’t dare make one slip and this is the same.
“Often the audience knows what I’m supposed to be doing more than I do!”
The Rocky Horror Show is touring until December 31. For information and tickets visit www.atgtickets.com
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