Interview: Jenny Douglas, actress

SHE is known as the Edinburgh girl who dazzled millions of television viewers during her yellow brick road battle to become the next Dorothy on the West End stage.

Andrew Lloyd Webber may have thrown her dreams somewhere over the rainbow when she exited his BBC competition in the quarter-finals earlier this year, but Jenny Douglas is no quitter.

When she makes her stage debut this winter in the Queen-inspired musical We Will Rock You, she will show the world there is no room for ruby slippers in her life anyway, only biker boots, leather jackets and lots of attitude.

"I am going to be a real Scottish minx in the show," the 19-year-old says, "and I can't wait!"

Relaxing in an over-sized settee in a coffee shop near her Haymarket flat, the former Tynecastle High student reveals she has itchy feet about starting rehearsals for the principal role of Meat in the production.

Any day now she will be asked to pack her bags and head to London, ahead of a year-long tour which will start on December 3 in Manchester before covering the UK to end in January 2012 on Jenny's home soil at the Playhouse.

For any performer it would be a daunting prospect. We Will Rock You does, after all, pay tribute to one of the world's most successful rock groups, is overseen by band members Brian May and Roger Taylor and is written by comic genius Ben Elton.

Jenny will have to give the performance of her life, night after night, when she takes on the emotional song No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young), written for the late Freddie Mercury by the remaining members of his band following his death in 1991.

Throw in the fact that Jenny has never appeared in any professional musical theatre before and it comes as a surprise to see the teenager so composed.

"It must have looked quite strange when I went for the audition," she smiles. "There were so many experienced performers there with their portfolios and headshots, ready to hand them over to the panel of judges. But I had nothing, I have none of these things. All I could do was go in and sing.

"I think they thought I was very fresh, though. I have a rawness and they can mould me.

"I would have done anything for this opportunity and I can't quite believe it is going to become my job."

That was in July, two months after Jenny made a shock exit from Over The Rainbow, the prime-time Saturday night talent show which put 9000 girls through their paces, with only one guaranteed to be chosen for the role of Dorothy in the forthcoming West End production of The Wizard of Oz.

But the brains behind We Will Rock You had had their eyes on Jenny for many weeks, having been blown away by her first performance in the competition in which she was selected as one of the final ten Dorothy hopefuls.

She did not find out until much later, but they had been in touch with the show's producers in the early stages, clearly marking out their interest in Jenny for their own cast.

So when she failed to make the semi-finals, devastated and exhausted, the news was revealed.

Driving home to Edinburgh from London with her family, she may have been anxious over what the future had in store, but she clung on to the hope that an audition she had been invited to for We Will Rock You could mark out a new path in her life.

Here she is now, cramming as much as she can into her days, eager to spend time with her family and friends before she leaves Edinburgh for a year on the road.

Of course, all of this has come as a huge surprise to Jenny, despite how level-headed the teenager appears.

Before her mum Mary, who lives in South Queensferry, spotted an advert for the Over the Rainbow auditions in January, Jenny was studying musical theatre at Motherwell College - a course, for obvious reasons, she has now quit - travelling back at weekends to perform at charity concerts and spend time with her friends.

Making it to the final 100, then the final 50 and then the final ten in the competition were milestones she never thought she would reach.

"I always gave the show 110 per cent," she says, "but I only ever thought it would be a good experience - you know, something I could put on my CV. It was absolutely amazing to get as far as I did."

At heart, though, Jenny was never Dorothy.

Although she would have shone in the role, the innocent, clean-cut image of the Kansas farm girl, played by Judy Garland in the hit film, was always at odds with her own personality, she says, revealing how she shocked judges in one of her first auditions for the programme by belting out AC/DC's Highway to Hell, instead of something a little more conservative.

"I feel the role of Meat is part of my roots," she smiles. "I was brought up with the music of Queen as my late grandmother was a huge fan and would go to see them in concert.

"I loved We Will Rock You the first time I saw it at the Playhouse and I feel this is the perfect role for me.

"There is a sexier, more edgy side to me which, on a family show on BBC1, could never really come across. I am just a regular 19-year-old girl, after all."

If a blunder made by celebrity judge Charlotte Church in the early stages of the show had not been rectified, however, Jenny would not be preparing to jet off to London any time soon.

"There was this horrible stage in the auditions where Charlotte Church had to go up and down the lines of potential Dorothys and tap the unsuccessful ones on the shoulder, signalling they were out of the competition," she says.

"She walked by me but then tapped my shoulder. I went to sit down, totally gutted, but then a producer came over and put her head on my shoulder and told me there had been a big mistake. ‘You're meant to be over there with the others!' she said.

"I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?' Because I had felt both rejection and success in the space of minutes, I appreciated everything all the more.

"The camera crew also loved the fact I was crying, they love filming that sort of thing!"

The rest is history and, for now, Jenny is focusing on becoming Meat, one of seven main characters in We Will Rock You. "It's going to be brilliant as they want me to play Meat as a really rough Scot, with a strong Glaswegian accent," says Jenny. "A real minx, that's what I'll be.

"Everyone who has played the part before me, from Kerry Ellis to Rachel Tucker, has played it in a different way, so here is my chance to make my mark.

"I couldn't have asked for a better role and I feel that I am playing a tiny role in Queen's history, which is very special."

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