Any dream will do

Steve Pratt hears how Antony Hansen dashed to grasp the break that brought him to the West End.

IT was the day that changed Antony Hansen’s life. He was a 17-year-old student who sang in school productions and amateur dramatic musicals when he heard about the auditions for a new TV talent show.

“I was still a little schoolboy, it was all a bit weird. I was at school and found out auditions were on and ran home and, panting and sweating, said I needed to go.

“It was best decision of my life. I made some lifelong friends and everything I’ve got now is due to me getting home from school and saying I need to go to London and do this audition.”

The show for which he was trying out was the BBC’s Any Dream Will Do, the search to find an unknown to wear the multi-coloured dreamcoat in a London West End revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical.

At 17, Hansen was the youngest of the wouldbe Josephs and didn’t win but the experience and the exposure set him on a showbiz career that four years later finds him appearing in West End hit Wicked, where he’s understudying the leading male role and appearing in the ensemble.

He’s already performed the same role – understudying young male lead Marius – in Les Mis as well as playing the Elvis-inspired Pharoah in the touring production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

He’s played Joseph on tour too, so losing wasn’t so bad after all. Four years on he has a good career in musical theatre with ambitions to branch out into acting and presenting.

Looking back, he realises the Joseph experience was a bit crazy. “I was 17, had never really been away from home before and was living in a big house down in London and performing to eight million people on television each week. It took a while to get used to it,” he says.

“It just kept going. Now I’m performing on the West End stage when I should be at university.”

On his day off from Wicked, he’ll be in York singing songs from the shows – Les Mis, Phantom Of The Opera and Mamma Mia! among them – in Direct From The West End with another reality star, Samantha Barks, who was in the BBC’s Nancy-search I’d Do Anything.

There was a bursary for drama school and he went intending to complete the three-year course but leaving after a term because he was being offered so much work he didn’t feel he could turn down. That included being in a boy band, Dream On, with some of the other Josephs and releasing two albums. The school offered him a sabbatical, saying he could go back any time.

Even if the Joseph show hadn’t come along, he’d still be studying music or theatre. It’s always what I wanted to do since I can remember.

I’ve always been a bit of a show-off,” he says.

He looks back on Any Dream Will Do fondly.

“I speak to actors in the West End and they say they could never do what I did – and how I did at 17 either I don’t know,” he says.

“But it was best decision of my life and I made some lifelong friends. Everything I’ve got now is due to me getting home from school and saying I need to go to do this audition. I think theatre is definitely in my blood.”

His aim on the Joseph programme was simple enough. Winning would have been lovely but “all I wanted to get out of the competition was get in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber and show him my stuff, and every day I stayed in the competition was great. The only thing I wanted to do was sing for him – which I got to do on the second day.”

His dream has come true. “I wanted to perform to a West End audience every night,” he says. “It’s great to do what I love and have a laugh and get paid for it.”

Not that he intends to rest on his laurels.

With the help of his agent, he’s branching out into other areas of showbiz, including TV and radio presenting.

Direct From The West End: York Grand Opera House, January 23. Tickets 0844-847-2322 and online at grandoperahouseyork.org.uk