Interview
by Joseph Holmes
Scan to watch the
interview on
YouTube!
Sitting on the bus, one miserable afternoon I saw a
Facebook advert for a show: “A Star Is Born This Way”,
and thought it was too good to be true. Firstly,
because they stole my idea despite me not being able
to convince anyone in a blonde wig and police tape.
Secondly, I have been very sceptical of tribute acts…
until I typed in ‘Donna Marie Lady Gaga’ into YouTube.
The No.1 worldwide sensation has vocal belts that’ll
leave you speechless, replica costumes and crazy
theatrics. The multi-award-winning impersonator
currently takes to the screen as a judge on the BBC
One singing contest ‘All Together Now’ and brings a
different Gaga look every week without fail. The
consecutive winner of the national tribute music
awards even got the approval of the very Lady herself
who said: “My god you look just like me, you are
amazing!”
I started off by asking how long she has been Lady Gaga
for and she replied: "Obviously I'm not the real Lady
Gaga!" which sent us both into a giggle. Donna Marie has
been a Lady Gaga Tribute act for 9 years which is the
most-part of Lady Gaga's career, which started after
seeing another tribute act do a Lady Gaga set and she
realised that she could pull it off, and make it better. As
soon as Donna found out Mother Monster was cast as
Ally an idea for a show was born. She waited for its
release in October 2018 to see if it would be successful
and what the music was like, Donna says "even though I
knew it was, but obviously you just never know". All the
time up until the release she had the idea for a massive
show, so when the soundtrack came out, she started
work. The tour will feature a live band, backing dancers
and video interludes- tickets are available now for
Clacton and other locations.
Donna's especially excited for this
show because she gets to perform
Ally's songs from A Star Is Born, songs
which are unlikely to ever be
performed live by Gaga herself, so she
sees it as an honour to be able to do
that. She also recognises how difficult
the songs are to perform compared to
some of Gaga's other hits, and it is
clear that the challenge only makes
her want to perform them more. The
first half of the show will be set up as if
you are watching a Jackson Maine and
Ally concert with the characters
performing their show live in front of
you, she guesses there are only about
one or two songs from the whole
soundtrack that won't be performed.
With a second-half jammed with Lady
Gaga's classic and new hits. Adam
Kelbie who is playing Bradley Cooper is
a fellow judge on BBC One's 'All
Together Now', he messaged her one
day asking to do a cover of Shallow
together on a karaoke app, and they
had so many hits that they decided it
was meant to be! They've started
rehearsing, videos will be shared on
social media (links at the bottom of this
interview) and Donna is finishing
casting her dancers this week. She
says: "it's all crazy at the minute, but
it's going to be great!"
You can watch the interview and read more at www.josephholmeswriter.com