I’ve been in showbiz for 25 years but I feel like I’m only just getting started, says Starstruck judge Beverley Knight
AS wannabes emerged through a smoky, sliding door dressed as their idols, talent series Stars In Their Eyes offered the ultimate showbiz makeover.
Little did Beverley Knight know she would be appearing on the reboot of the ITV programme that would finally take her career out of the ether and into the mainstream.
After 25 years in the business and turning 50 last month, Beverley has revealed her recent role as judge on Starstruck has booking agents banging down her door.
The soul singer and actress said: “Starstruck has opened the door, a lot of casting directors are now requesting meetings with me so it is a really exciting time.
“It feels really comfortable and it feels like the right time. Even though I am 50 and have been in the business for 25 years I feel like I am only just getting started. I want to make people smile and be happy.
“And I want to conquer the world.”
Beverley sits on the Starstruck panel alongside country music legend Shania Twain, theatre star Adam Lambert and comic Jason Manford.
They watch a string of tribute acts compete to be crowned the best in their field.
This weekend’s grand final will see Sam Cooke, Adele, Frank Sinatra, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Meat Loaf vie for the prize.
And Beverley even treads the stage herself in a huge ensemble performance. She said: “I’m not sure if I would have been able to handle it or do as good a job if it had come earlier in my career.
‘They gave me the tools’
“I think I would have doubted myself a few years back but now I know I am good enough to take on any project. I am fully ready to make the most of the opportunity.”
It’s surprising to hear a performer as accomplished as Beverley has ever doubted her talent.
Born Beverley Anne Smith in Wolverhampton, she began writing her own songs at 13 and sang in church before signing a record deal at 21.
Her second album Prodigal Sista lit a fuse in August 1998, peaking at number 42 but producing five top-40 hits, including Greatest Day and Made It Back.
Further albums produced the songs she is best known for including Shoulda Woulda Coulda and Come As You Are and bagged her a string of MOBO awards.
In 2006, Beverley toured as support on the Take That reunion tour. And that year she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her contribution to British music.
She even supported Prince during his 2007 residency at London’s O2 Arena. But despite her glowing CV, Beverley never felt like she had hit the big time.
She told The Sun: “I have had to dig deep at times and things haven’t always been easy. I have had to fight for my career. I look at people like me but younger, like Lizzo, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and they are killing it.
“If my success cut a little path for them in the jungle, they have now smashed open that path for me with a motorway.
“It’s strange how things come full circle. The doors I banged on for years and slowly but surely opened to help others have now been blown open by the next younger generation, which in turn also benefits me.
“It is nice to see the fruits of all our hard labour for years are opening the doors for all of us now.”
Since Beverley was sprinkled with Starstruck’s magic, her career on the stage has also finally been recognised.
In 2013 she took on the role of Rachel Marron in the musical adaptation of The Bodyguard – the part played by Whitney Houston in the blockbuster film — and it set her up for a decade of treading the boards.
Time as Grizabella in Cats followed as well as the lead in Memphis.
Then this year she debuted as Emmeline Pankhurst in the Old Vic’s hip-hop inspired musical, Sylvia, based on the Suffragette movement.
This week she was awarded Best Supporting Actress at the Olivier Awards.
Ecstatic as she collected the gong, Beverley said: “I got this award because of good, diligent people who gave up their time and money to get 11-year-old Beverley on a stage at Wolverhampton Grand theatre to live out her absolute dream.
“If it wasn’t for Wolverhampton Youth Theatre I wouldn’t be stood here. They gave me the tools.”
And she hailed the huge swing towards diversity in theatre, adding: “You cannot stop the march of where theatre is going and I’m telling you I am so here for it. I love that I look out and see diversity in age, in race.”
So is that a change that Beverley has seen reflected across the showbiz industry?
She told The Sun: “It’s great to see so much diversity on TV and the fair opportunities we are now having.
“But it is only the tip of the iceberg, we still have a long way to go.
“Yes women, people of colour, the LGBT community and the older generation are being represented much more but it still isn’t enough.”
There is a neat serendipity that Beverley’s award came from playing a pioneering woman who campaigned for change.
She added: “I have always tried to be a voice. Not just a singing voice but a voice for the things I believe in and am passionate about. You don’t have to make it a political statement or call it politics, it is just life.”
Beverley is no stranger to the ups and downs that come with life.
Since meeting on the set of a TV shoot in 2010, she has been with her husband, production technician James O’Keefe.
The couple have been unable to have children after her experience with muscular tumours in her womb.
She was advised to undergo a hysterectomy and described the moment as a “thunderbolt, even at 44”.
But Beverley endured the life-altering health struggles, and worked hard at her career until she found herself in the judges seat of the ITV reboot.
In a difference to the Matthew Kelly-fronted Stars In Their Eyes in the Nineties, each episode of the show takes three professional performers who all specialise in the same act battle to be named the best Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift or Tom Jones.
The final will see the series six best compete to be champion.
Beverley said: “Every show we get to witness ordinary people emulate extraordinary icons on a huge scale.
“And you’ll see us all perform together. It’s so nice when you sing as a group because it’s a sharing of the joy and the blend of totally different voices and styles of singers coming together is great.
“Every singer on that stage stands up in their own right.”
It’s something that’s struck a chord with viewers, with around five million regularly tuning in.
She added: “Starstruck is just the perfect Saturday night entertainment. It’s feel good telly for all the family.
“It promotes great artists, talent and diversity. It’s a diverse judging panel, diverse contestants.
“I think the public see themselves, ‘I’d love to be that’. I think there’s so much that’s relatable.
“It’s members of the public living out their ultimate fantasy by dressing up and then singing and taking on the persona of their favourite singing idol.
“This is ordinary people who are doing something completely outside of their realms of what they would ordinarily do. It’s a celebration.”
Speaking of celebration, Beverley has enjoyed her own festivities recently, after turning 50 two weeks ago.
She said: “I am celebrating reaching my half century!”
To mark the milestone, she has made big plans for her music. “I am 50 and I want that to be a celebration rather than something to fear so I will be dropping a brand new album of new material.
“It will be an album of celebration. It is joyous and positive.
“Even the slower songs will have a positive spin to them or be inspirational.”
And she laughed: “It will be nice to remind people of my day job, I have been a recording artist for nearly 30 years after all!”
- Watch the Starstruck grand final tonight at 8.30pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
1973 Born Beverley Anne Smith in Wolverhampton.
1994 First record deal at 21.
1995 First album The B-Funk, peaks at No 145 in the UK album charts.
1997 Signs new deal with EMI Parlophone.
1998 2nd album Prodigal Sista peaks at No 42. Five top-40 hits (inc. Greatest Day and Made It Back). Three MOBO awards.
2002 First Top 10 single, Shoulda Woulda Coulda. 3rd album Who I Am gets to No 7.
2004 4th album Affirmation gets to No 11. Biggest hit Come As You Are is No 9.
2006 BBC1 music show Just The Two Of Us, supports Take That on tour. Releases a greatest hits album, Voice.
2006 MBE for services to music.
2007 Supports Prince for his residency at London’s O2 Arena. Released 5th album, Music City Soul.
2009 Leaves Parlophone, sets up own label, Hurricane Records. 6th album 100%, peaks at No 17.
2011 Covers album of soul classics which get to No 13.
2012 Marries James O’Keefe.
2013 Musicals debut in The Bodyguard.
2014 Lead role in Memphis.
2015 Grizabella in Cats revival at London Palladium. 8th album Soulsville get to No 10.
2017 Has hysterectomy.
Nov 2017 Joins Amber Riley and Cassidy Janson as ‘Leading Ladies’ to release Songs From the Stage album.
2019 Faye Treadwell in The Drifters Girl. Live album, BK25.
2022 Judge on Starstruck.
Jan 2023 Emmeline Pankhurst in hip-hop musical Sylvia.
Mar 2023 Best Supporting Actress Olivier award.