Frances in good voice for quest to take TV talent title

After getting through the second round of the BBC 1 prime time competition yesterday in a duet sing-off against rival Kate Read, Frances must now pack up her school books as well as her clothes and toothbrush and leave her family behind to live in London for however many weeks she stays in the competition, which will continue from next Saturday with live shows in which the audience will vote contenders out of the race.

“I know I’ll be fine down there. I’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of me and will be so busy learning things all the time and doing my school work, but I’m out to prove that I can do it. I can be the best,” says Frances, who’s in her A-level year at the Cathedral Academy of Performing Arts in Wakefield.

She’s been performing one way or another since the age of four when she won a talent competition by belting out the Spice Girls’ number one Stop Right Now! while on a family holiday. “After that I just wanted to sing all the time, and entered every competition I could, including reaching the final of Live and Unsigned in London.”

It was Frances’s mum Donna who spotted an ad for The Voice UK. The show was looking not for rank outsiders but for singers who already had some kind of track record.

Getting into the last 20 of a television contest entered by 25,000 people across the country is a great achievement in itself, and Frances feels she has a better chance of a serious music career if she goes the whole (or even most of) the way in The Voice UK than if she had entered X Factor or any of its imitators.

For those who haven’t tuned in yet on Saturday nights, after more than a decade of the usual reality TV singing contest format including the ritual humiliation of a long parade of no-hopers and oddballs rejected in open auditions, the BBC has come up with a format whose unique selling point is the “blind audition” – cutting out the distractions of appearance by having the judges/coaches listen to contestants without seeing them. The coaches, Tom Jones, Danny O’Donoghue (front man of Irish band The Script), top UK pop singer/songwriter Jessie J and American musician, Black-Eyed Peas front man, songwriter and producer Will.i.am, turn their chairs to show they like and want to coach a contestant. The contestant then gets to choose their coach if more than one declares an interest.

Frances, who lives in Wrenthorpe, made the bold move of singing a Black Eyed Peas rap hit written by Will.a.am in her audition and succeeded in convincing him that he needed her on the team of 10 contestants he would take forward into the rest of the series. After the weekend’s second round of duet sing-offs, each team of 10 was halved, and the remaining 20 contestants will now fight it out until the final on June 3. For Frances, whose determination to carve out a career in showbusiness has meant singing lessons, learning keyboards and songwriting, plus regular performances in pubs, clubs, college shows and even busking, the chance of learning from one of the top names in pop music is more than she could ever have dreamed of – although she says she didn’t used to be a fan of TV talent shows.

“This one is different because it really is about your voice not how you look, and the focus is on developing your technique as well as stage presence.”

Frances seems to be astonishingly level-headed, despite all the excitement swirling about her just now. She’s all too aware that some singers, like X Factor 2004 winner Steve Brookstein, can win the competition only to find that the dream of the big-time fizzles out all too soon.

But, says Dr Rupert Till, senior lecturer in musical technology and popular music at Huddersfield University, such competitions are as much about cruise ship and end-of-the-pier shows as they are about number one albums and worldwide fame.

Bradford’s Gareth Gates, who signed a record deal after becoming the runner-up to Will Young in Pop Idol in 2000, may not have sustained a pop career as such, but he has become a star of West End musicals, and will shortly be seen in Loserville at West Yorkshire Playhouse.

“I wouldn’t say The Voice UK is superior to other such shows in the way it makes out to be,” says Dr Till, who himself auditioned for X Factor a few years ago but didn’t get past the auditions (“I felt I should try it if I was encouraging my students to have a go...”).

“People can be very sceptical about youngsters going into these shows, and they are just posh karaoke, but you’ve got a lot more chance of making it if you have the support of a coach like Tom Jones and the BBC than without them. Any wannabe would kill for that opportunity.”

Dr Till is a fan of TV talent shows, and says they offer good singers an opportunity to find a career somewhere in the music business.

“Okay, there may be a some winners who’s profile has fallen away and their record deal has not been renewed, but having been a TV reality show finalist or winner can keep you in work for many years – whether on a ship, pubs and clubs or even panto. Yes, the ultimate dream is to make it big and stay big, but most true musicians just want to find a way of earning a living somehow from doing what they love.”

If fame comes knocking Frances has a plan. “If I succeed I won’t let the music machine change me. Most of all I want to record my own songs, and I think I’m strong enough not to sing anything or present myself in a way that I’m not comfortable with.

“If I don’t get to the end of the series, well I will hopefully get my A-level, and I have a conditional place at Bath Spa University to study popular music. I will work very hard, and whatever happens with the show, I’m determined to make it.”