It's a dream

It was a most unusual scene on the London Underground, where strangers usually studiously ignore each other. A girl aged, I guess, ten or 12, jumped up, and with a ravishing smile offered me her seat. She then proceeded to stand on one leg, ballet-dancer style, while holding on to the overhead handrail with just a finger. She remained rock-steady, as the train swayed through the tunnel.

"She's at stage school back home in Oxfordshire," her mother explained to the amused audience all around. All of which was most appropriate, for I was on my way to meet Tasha Sheridan, from Harwell, who has also been to stage school, as well as appearing in several productions with Oxfordshire Youth Music Theatre. Now Tasha is a professional - her biography proclaims her to be "Ensemble" in the perennial West End hit Mamma Mia!, which is based on the songs of Abba.

Arriving at the Prince of Wales Theatre for the Mamma Mia! Saturday matinee, however, a shock awaits: Tasha is no longer listed in the ensemble (alias the chorus).

"I was in the ensemble last year," Tasha tells me after the performance. "I graduated from the School of Musical Theatre, Chiswick, in July 2004, and got the job in November that year. I started rehearsals in January, and opened in the show the following March. I was in the ensemble for a year, and I was also second cover understudy to Lisa, one of the two bridesmaids who has to jump over a wall. Towards the end of the year, I put in a request to be seen as a first cover to the part of Sophie. I auditioned, and was actually given the role itself."

Big deal? You bet, for Sophie starts the whole show by singing I Have a Dream stone-cold solo, with no big orchestral build-up or backing ensemble to help her.

"It's a very difficult opening," Tasha agrees with fervour. "It gives me kittens, it really does, every time I do it. I Have a Dream is a very difficult song to sing, it's so still. And then you've got all those interval jumps. When you listen to the original Abba recordings, they've got such pure voices. When everybody sings along to Abba on the radio they think: Oh, that's an easy song to sing'. Then you get into rehearsals, and you look at the music. Abba are so precise with what riffs you can do, and any licence you can take. It's all written there in the music, and if it's not there you can't do it. So it's a lot of pressure for the opening of a show."

Besides I Have a Dream, Sophie also has to drop the show's first dramatic bombshell. She is about to be married, and has invited her long-absent father to the wedding. The trouble is that any one of three men could be her father, so she has invited all three. When her mother finds out, she is horrified.

"You have to get the story going, and blast the audience with all this information," Tasha laughs. "It's quite a challenging first ten minutes."

We are talking in Tasha's dressing room in the gap between the two Saturday shows. Friday is also a matinee day, so that's four performances back to back. Furthermore, Tasha's dressing room is in the attic, four flights of steep stairs above the stage. What on earth does she feel like by Sunday morning? "Dead! I really relish having Sundays to myself."

Like opera singer Mary Plazas, Tasha Sheridan went to Didcot Girls School. While there, she appeared in shows put on by Oxfordshire Youth Music Theatre, run by Lin Marsh and Judy Tompsett.

"I owe everything to Lin and Judy, I really do. I learnt about the music, how to take direction, and they taught me the skills you need to keep your head on in this business. They invested a lot of time with me. I've done shows with Abingdon Operatic Society too, and with the Bartholomew Community Theatre in Eynsham."

But, of course, not every youngster who appears with a local operatic society ends up in a West End musical. What made Tasha decide she wanted to go on the professional stage?

"It just clicked with me. I went along to OYMT one day, and thought I'd give it a go. I didn't know what to expect. And that was it, I came out running, and thought I want to go back again. Yes, it's a business you have to work very hard in, but I found it all just came naturally to me. Then Lin and Judy said: We think you could take this further'."

And what about Tasha's parents, what did they feel about their daughter going on the stage? "My mum loves music. It was an alien world to my dad, but he loves it now I'm doing it. They supported me from the word go, but I had to stay and do my A-Levels, that's what they asked of me. I think that was right, going to drama school at 19 rather than 16 was a good thing - much as I begrudged staying on for the sixth form at the time."

Watching the TV series Musicality, and now How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, Andrew Lloyd Webber's nationwide search for an unknown to star as Maria in his new production of The Sound of Music, you could easily get the impression that the world of the West End musical is an overheated version of hell. I wondered if these series reflected Tasha's own experience.

"They're not entirely accurate. The business is ruthless, and if you're not right for a part, you're not right for it. That reality, and the feeling of rejection, is very, very real. But I know someone who went quite far with the Maria auditions, but she didn't have a traumatic upbringing, so she never had a camera in her face. They wanted to film people who were going to be cheeky to the judges, or burst into tears.

"When you walk into auditions, yes, they are very scary. But the people there aren't waiting for you to go wrong, and that's what these reality programmes want to see. If you're at an audition and you crack on the note, you simply start again. If you crack on stage, you hope it goes better the next night. It happens to all of us, and you just have to get on with it."

Tasha is contracted to appear in Mamma Mia! until next March. What would be her dream role after that?

"I would love to play one of the two witches in Wicked, the new show about to open in London. Or perhaps Kate in Avenue Q. But most of all I'd like to play Mary Poppins in the great big Prince Edward Theatre."

Mamma Mia! continues at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London. Box office: 0870 850 0393.