X Factor winner Joe McElderry and former Sugarbabe Amelle Berrabah have spoken about their excitement at bringing the new '80s musical Club Tropicana to Dublin later this month, with Berrabah saying: "I think Irish audiences are going to really like it".
The brand new musical is described as "the 1980s answer to Love Island" and is set in the Club Tropicana Hotel, where a bride and groom who have gotten cold feet end up accidentally checking into the same establishment.
It all goes "tragically, but comically wrong," McElderry who plays Gary the entertainments manager explains.
Speaking ahead of their run at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from Tuesday July 30 - Saturday August 3, McElderry, who won the sixth series of The X Factor in 2009 and has gone on to carve out a successful career in music, spoke about bringing the show to Ireland.
"I know from doing my gigs here and you're probably the same from Sugababes, they’re always such vocal audiences!" he said.
"So I imagine, add our comedy and madness of our show with the Irish audiences, we’re going to have a great time."
Singer Amelle Berrabah, who is making her musical theatre debut in the role of Serena the hotel manager, admitted she had some nerves as she prepared to take to the stage for the first time.
"I think it was more nervewracking too because my daughter was six months, I'd been at home a hell of a lot of time changing nappies, so I found it very strange speaking to adults," she said with a laugh.
"I found that was the weirdest thing for me, suddenly being in a room with not one or two adults that I’m not used to speaking to, but 30!
"I was so nervous [when I saw the script] when I saw how thick it was. I had baby brain for a start so I didn’t know how it was going to go into my head, but somehow it did."
"You smashed it," Joe interjected, before going on to explain that taking on roles in a brand new musical meant that the script often changed from day to day.
"We were learning pages of dialogue and then coming in the next day and they were like 'scrap it, here’s the new script,’" he said.
"So it was almost like work-shopping it as we rehearsed it. We did have a lot of fun because the material made it fun, we laughed our way through it, but there was moments where we were like 'are we going to have a show on Friday?'"
However, the advantage of being the first actors to play these roles was the freedom of creating their own characters.
"The beauty of it is that you've created this new character and you can play him or her the way you want to, with the guidance of the director and producer obviously," Berrabah said.
McElderry continued: "There's no reference, we were all developing the characters from scratch. I did Joseph [And the Amazing Technicholour Dreamcoat] a few years ago and the minute I got the role I went onto YouTube, I looked at old clips of the show, you could use reference points.
"We had no reference for this and it’s a comedy show. For me it’s a full comedy role, and I’ve never done comedy before, I didn’t know if any of the jokes were going to be funny, I didn’t know if I was going to be funny.
"I remember the first night, the opening night, I was stood in the wing and I was like 'This is the end of my career.' We went out there, and honestly the reaction on the first night, we were like 'we’ve got something special here.'"
Club Tropicana is set to an incredible soundtrack of some of the most iconic 80s tunes including Relax, Just Can't Get Enough, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Making Your Mind Up and The Look of Love.
"Some absolute tunes," McElderry enthused, before saying Berrabah's "beautiful version of OnlyYou is a real special moment in the show."
"I like Relax the way you sing it, it's one of my favourites," she told Joe, who explained: "I do Relax as the finale number and we do a huge dance routine with all the cast."
"It’s the ad libs he does, he does all the Beyoncé [moves]," Berrabah joked.
"Don’t be giving my secrets away!" he laughed, before adding.
"Listen, channel Beyoncé in everyday life and you’ll be absolutely fine."
Club Tropicana runs at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from July 30 - August 3. Tickets are on sale now.
