Queen B

I’M not the only one who thought that Brenda Edwards should have won ITV1’s X Factor in 2005.

Brenda Edwards still thinks so too. “I thought I was going to win, but it wasn’t meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. If I had won I wouldn’t have done Chicago in the West End playing Mama Morton, which was very good for me. I did the role for three years on and off.

“If I’d won I’d have been whisked off to a recording studio, whereas performing live is second nature to me. I’d have relished the challenge of recording something and getting it out and advertising it – and being guaranteed a Christmas No 1 I remind her – but I like the way my career has gone,” says Edwards who has become X Factor correspondent for GMTV in recent years.

“So I’ve got a little bit of X Factor,” she says with a mischievous grin while admitting that she cried for a week-and-a-half after being voted off the TV show at the semi-final stage.

Edwards has taken on her biggest stage role yet, that of the Killer Queen in the touring version of Queen-Ben Elton musical, We Will Rock You, which plays three weeks at the Sunderland Empire in June.

Asked about playing a magnificent villain she bursts out laughing and says: “I don’t know what it is with me? With Mama Morton she’s the boss lady in charge of everybody. I thought, when I was offered the role, ‘hell no, she’s a bossy woman who takes backhanders who pretends to be a friend’. I felt it wasn’t me, not my personality. Then, as a Killer Queen, I’m someone who kills everybody who doesn’t agree with her and she’s wiped out live music which is quite ironic because I love live music. I’m playing the role of someone who is the total opposite to me. But I get to play dress-up with all the outfits, jewellery and hair and it’s fabulous. Even so I was scared and nervous at my audition with Brian May, Ben Elton and Roger Taylor.”

She reminds me that she was such a fan of Queen that Don’t Stop Me Now was her audition piece for Sharon Osbourne in the early stages of X Factor selection. “I still sing it now when I do gigs. So it’s quite weird that four years later I’ve come round to singing the same song in a Queen show. I’m quite fortunate that I’ve got some of the best songs – It’s A Kind Of Magic, Killer Queen, Play The Game and Another One Bites The Dust. Luckily I don’t get booed because I’m a villain but a friendly villain. I smile at the same time as killing you. Surely that’s got to get bonus points,”

Edwards says with another burst of laughter.

“She hates everything that’s good, that’s live and I think that I put over that disgust... even when I’m filmed during bikini waxing. It’s a very funny rock musical and the only one that’s about at the moment,” she says adding that the beauty of the songs is that Queen’s music will never die.

“These songs have been around for years and everyone wants to sing along at the end.”

Returning to the X Factor, I ask her if being black and female might have counted against her in 2005 when phone voters seemed keener on white, and particularly, male contestants.

“I think after my year a lot more emphasise was put on ‘come on pick up the phone and vote for a female you like’. I’m still in contact with a few people from my year in X Factor, but not Shayne Ward. There’s Chico (who has just been announced as the star of Darlington’s pantomime) and Andy (Abraham),” she says.

Can X Factor keep finding singers like her year after year?

“I don’t think so. I don’t know how much longer the format of X Factor will go. It was Pop Idol then X Factor and now Britain’s Got Talent. They’ll find something else, but it is a selection process the theatres are also using. You’ve got Nancy, Joseph etc being chosen on TV and someone like Ray Quinn wins Dancing On Ice and is now going into Grease in the West End. Chicago is heavily based on celebrity cast members.

“There are so many celebrities in this show which is a surprise because in the West End, at the Dominion Theatre, there aren’t.

There’s me. Kevin Kennedy, Jonathan Wilkes, Ashley J Russell from BBC1’s I’d Do Anything and Georgie Hagen from ITV1’s Britannia High.

There’s a lot of us,” says Edwards who has just finished recording her debut album, Brenda.

“It’s taken me quite some years to get where I am now, but I’m so happy I’ve done it... one reason I’m doing the tour is to make sure I can afford to put this album out myself,” she says.

■ We Will Rock You runs at Sunderland Empire, June 10-27.

Tickets: £12.50-£32.50. Box Office: 0844-847-2499