Sheila Hancock blasts actors' 'snooty' attitude towards musicals
Actress Sheila Hancock has criticised her own profession for turning its nose up at musicals.
Hancock, 77, who is a judge on Andrew Lloyd Webber's TV search for an unknown to play Dorothy in a West End production of The Wizard Of Oz, accused the acting world of snobbery.
The veteran actress, who has been starring in the £7 million West End stage adaptation of Hollywood film Sister Act, told the Radio Times: "There's an incredibly grand attitude towards musicals. I don't understand why my profession is so snooty about it.
"It's not just my profession, it's critics too. They say there are too many in the West End. But the big houses have got to do musicals to fill them."
She added: "You're never going to get 2,400 people a night for a play. I'm sorry, you really aren't.
"We should be so grateful for musicals and the amount of work that goes into these shows is easily comparable to things I've been in at the National (Theatre) and the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company). Why do we think it is less important?"
Hancock, who was married to Inspector Morse star John Thaw until his death from cancer in 2002, said of the forthcoming BBC show Over the Rainbow: "It isn't making fun of people.
"On The X Factor, they deliberately have people on that are awful just to laugh at them. That certainly doesn't happen here. The judging is very intense."
She denied Lord Lloyd Webber's show was exploitative, saying of the reputed £1,500 a week earned by Connie Fisher to star in the hit production of The Sound Of Music after she won the first of his TV talent searches: "£1,500 is reasonably good for a newcomer."
