It's not just fair and natural or being kind to their voices. It's the law. In the UK children are not allowed to work more than so many hours a week in theatre / television / or film. Every show that involves children has 2 or 3 alternating the role. The exact number depends on when the show comes down. If it comes down after 10pm then the restrictions are greater and more are needed: hence there are only 2 groups of children in Joseph because it is a short show, but 3 boys playing Gavroche in Les Miz because it is a long show.

I understand all the fears about the voting process for the Olivers but overall I think it'll be great with some fantastic songs - Who Will Buy - being one of my favourites.

They don't. They audition potential candidates, then train them solidly for 18 months in Billy School before they are good enough to perform in the show.

Yeah I know but they still find them to start with

Exactly. They find the boys with the talent and then work on teaching them the skills required.

They are truely amazing! I cried when one of the boys did 'Electricity' on the Joseph show (at least I think that was what it was on, or it may have been another programme). My 'nearly' 4 year old son does ballet and if he ever got half that good he'd be amazing!

The Lion King has FIVE young Simba's and FIVE young Nala's for 8 shows per week - it is not unusual at all.

The ultimate prize will be which Oliver does the opening night show I imagine.

And as I commented earlier, not only is it not unusual, it's the law!

They have said that the programme will choose the boy to play the opening night so it sounds like we will be voting for that too.

I know you did (and I know it is) - my post was to give an example of a running show where there are more than three kids for each part.

It wouldn't suprise me if we ONLY vote for who does opening night out of the top 3.

It looks like we will be voting on who the three are as well. The website says that 15 will be in the live shows with 8 in the semis. Unless it is just the panel reducing the 15 down to 3.

I know - my only thought is has the potential to get very complicated with voting for Olivers, Nancys and opening night Oliver, coupled with the fact that the Olivers might find it very hard to handle public rejection, as opposed to the experts rejecting them.

I'm not really excited about 'Oliver', even though I loved ADWD (didn't watch Maria though). I don't think picking a kids is a good idea, but I guess we'll have to wait and see

More importantly what song are they going to use to wave off the voted off Nancy? Surely they wont do that to the boys. I was looking forward to hearing songs from the show until I remembered all they sing are crappy pop songs. These shows would be a hundred times better if they had them singing songs from musicals.

I too thought it was "My Fair Lady" AND I'm concerned about watching kids getting disappointed every week. Maybe they'll have a format that will avoid that, though I'm hard pushed to imagine it myself.

I remember that, that boy was amazing. He was the most talented on the Joseph show that night

okay, i was going to go for nancy, but you have to be 17. theres no problem with that
but 9-12 year olds, will they be able to handle it?
the josephs had MANY tears, and so is it far on the younger lads


is the rest of the pannel still the same, aka DVO, JB and ZT?
and they cant put the lid on this after this one, they could do phantom to get the male and female search, and then do one when i'm actually old enough to audition ><

The open auditions were in Belfast yesterday - I'd love to have been a fly on the wall! Ah well, we'll see it soon.

RE La Rhumba / Cameron Mackintosh

I love his shows and am disappointed to read how he treated you. He appeared on
So What Do You Do All Day? with Adrian Chiles and I thought he was very abrupt and arrogant.

It will be interesting to see what he is like on I'd Do Anything.

Graham Norton was on Richard & Judy today and mentioned I'd Do Anything. Still not sure how they're picking Oliver but it'll be interesting.

Isnt Nancy the role that Ex-Eastenders star 'Jessie Wallace' has had her eye on for ages! I've constantly read this in interviews by her. Whether she'd be prepared to go down the audition route live on Saturday nights is another matter but I'm not ruling it out yet - the hype of it all would be publicity for the show. Not a massive Jessie Wallace fan but I do think she'd make a good Nancy!

Andrew and Denise gave it a cheeky plug on the Brit Awards too

Shes much too old and having seen her in rent dont think its really something she would do well.

bbc has videos up http://www.bbc.co.uk/oliver/
I heard nancy school was last week.

Lee Mead (the winner of ADWD and star of Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat) visited the venue for the London auditions:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/oliver/gallery/index.shtml?show=3

It must have been an interesting experience for him seeing the auditions from 'the other side'!

We have a start date - Saturday 15 March

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pro...12/index.shtml

That is my saturday nights sorted then for the next 10 weeks or so!

Good website - I got 8 out of 10 on the Oliver quiz!