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Home , 2 Become 1, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Mel B, Simon Fuller, Spice Up Your Life

! WESTSPICE UP YOUR LIFE END

Brainchild of the Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer and written by Jennifer Saunders, the musical Viva Forever! launches next month. Giles Hattersley goes backstage to discover if it’s what the band want, what they really really want VIVA FOREVER!

n a rehearsal room in south London, two me just before the film of Mamma Mia! came young actors are working on a scene with out [in 2008]. I sent Simon an email, saying Where are they now? all the earnest dedication required of I had to concentrate on the movie. Obviously, Baby, 36 had a Ibsen. This is not Ibsen, however. At the you don’t write letters like that to Simon,” she successful solo career before back of the room, massive signs are laughs, “because I didn’t hear from him again. moving into radio presenting propped against the wall, spelling out the But I did hear from Geri in 2009. She wrote a (she has a show on ). immortal girl-band mantra: “Who do you sweet email, so I met her and Emma [Bunton].” She’s also been a recurring character on think you are?” It’s an existential puzzler In fact, the girls had wanted to do a musical and has two sons Ithat performers are encouraged to struggle for years. “It was an idea that was talked about with Jade Jones of the boyband with as they wrestle with other deep emotional all the time,” says Halliwell, but Craymer fare, such as, “I’ll tell you what I want, what I hadn’t been looking to do another jukebox Ginger, 40 After quitting the y really, really want.” Today, the show’s two leads musical (a term she hates). “I don’t think people band in 1998, had are rehearsing a love scene. “What do you feel?” understand how these shows really work. four solo British No 1s, sold 12m asks Paul Garrington, the director. The young I don’t know if I really understand,” she laughs, records globally, and had a stint man reaches for a and sings breathily by “but you couldn’t just listen to a catalogue of as a UN celebrity ambassador. She lives in way of response. “Viva forever, I’ll be waiting/ songs on a Friday and have a show by Monday. London with her daughter, Bluebell : gett anel p ictu r es Everlasting, like …” and so on until, You need a lot of time to make them work.” She

, p age apparently bowled over by the romantic power went round to Ginger Spice’s for tea and was Scary, 37 Living in LA and a of late-1990s manufactured pop, the lovers bamboozled — Halliwell was charming but judge on the Australian X Factor, collapse in a hug. “Oh, it’s ,” says persistent. “She wasn’t going to let me out of Melanie Brown has never been

. o pp osite p Garrington. “How do they get off?” asks his the front door. You don’t not commit to Geri.” far from the tabloid spotlight. page turner It was a assistant, wondering how they will exit the ‘no-brainer’ for Jennifer Unless you’re one of her boyfriends, apparently. In 2007 she made the actor stage. “They revolve off, babe,” says Saunders to write the “More than anything, I listened to the songs, take a paternity test to prove he was the Garrington. “Right, what’s next? ?” script. Top right: models so I got the boundaries and structure. Then father of her second child Gird your loins, theatre-lovers, Viva Forever! of the show’s set. Bottom Geri would call from a ski lift or somewhere is here. On December 11, the most anticipated right: Hannah John-Kamen and we’d chat away. That was October, and by Sporty, 38 Melanie Chisholm

r, p hotoshot son Walle (left), playing Viva, and

y has been making her name in musical of the decade is opening in the West Sporty Spice (right) December I’d met Victoria. I took her and her End. Depending on how you feel about the get stuck into rehearsals mum, Jackie, to see Mel C in Blood Brothers.” musical theatre, with an Olivier plucky, girl-power oeuvre of the Spice Girls, It turns out that Posh is much keener on Viva award-winning turn in Blood this will be cause for unbridled joy or engender than her dour appearance at the press launch Brothers and as Mary Magdalene in a tour dread bordering on terror. Masterminding soundbite (“We can spread the message of girl me — until they told me I’d gone over,” jokes with fashion illustrations on the walls and suggested. “When we opened Mamma Mia!, of Jesus Christ Superstar. She has a affairs is the super-producer Judy Craymer, the power to a whole new generation”), then pegged Peter McKintosh, the production designer. The pricey gluten-free chocolates on the coffee table. Victoria came about 18 times,” says Craymer. three-year-old daughter, Scarlett : A l r ation : I llust ages woman behind Mamma Mia!, the Abba-tastic it back to LA as if she were being chased by a show could earn the girls £3m a year each, but Craymer is similarly well put together, in black “She told me she had always wanted to be the show that half the world adores and everybody swarm of bees. But perhaps even Posh — whose most musicals play to packed houses for Céline. In fact, the only bits of tat in the place White Cat in Cats. I thought, if these girls Posh, 38 Thanks to endless else got dragged to see anyway. After opening £190m marital fortune is more than four times between six months and two years before they are five Spice Girls dolls, which she rearranges hadn’t become the Spice Girls, they would have press fascination, four children . pr evious p scores of productions of the show, generating that of the rest of the girls’ put together — can’t turn a profit. Craymer will be hoping to take on the shelves above her desk in line with how been auditioning for West End shows.” and marriage to , more than £1bn at the box office, Craymer is turn her nose up at the money. After all, the her extravaganza around the world, pronto. they’re currently getting on with each other. Victoria is perhaps the most taking on the Spice Girls, and has hired Jennifer Spice Girls sold more than 75m records in their Luckily, the Spice Girls were never just a British It was nearly a decade ago that the idea for a ut become the Spice Girls they did. It’s successful former Spice Girl. Now living Saunders to weave a story around their songs. short career. For anyone who feels queasy at the phenomenon — their debut single topped the Spice Girls musical came to her. “In 2003 I was curious, looking back, to recall just how in LA, she turned her back on music and The Spices have been heavily involved, words “”, there are still plenty of fans charts in 31 countries, including America. at dinner [at Bibendum], and [the outrageously successful they were. The launched a high-end fashion label attending production meetings and visiting to delight, including a lucrative trifecta of mums, But how does one begin to translate the all-powerful manager who looked after the girls B biggest British band since , workshops. (aka Scary) tells me: “Judy daughters and gays. A bit like Abba, really. likes of , and Stop in their heyday] was at another table. We went their reign on global charts makes you wonder and Jennifer were very aware that us five girls Just as well. Viva Forever! needs to be a into a theatrical experience capable of raking over for coffee. I didn’t know what to say to if we all went temporarily insane. And yet they looks well, wrapped up in scarves in the had to be OK with everything.” Meanwhile, monster hit if it’s to become a cash cow for the in millions while maintaining a soupçon of him, so I blurted out, ‘Have you ever thought of stood for something. Ask any woman who was mid-afternoon gloom of the theatre bar. She Geri Halliwell is giddy with excitement: “Our Spices. It will have cost a bomb to stage. “I don’t integrity? I head to Craymer’s Mayfair office to doing a Spice Girls musical?’ He smiled sweetly, playground age in the late 1990s and she’ll says taking on the gig has been a no-brainer, songs have always been full of drama, and know what the budget was. Nobody ever told find out. I am led into an elegant white room, and I didn’t think any more of it. But he called probably tell you girl power was no bad thing. even though it coincided with the chemotherapy rw ise stated othe z ine , unless maga y times I always felt they were perfect for a show.” “The world has changed,” says Craymer. she was undergoing for breast cancer. Her Are all members as keen? Ever since the “Now you have to explain why you like the daughters were massive Spice Girls fans and short blast of megastardom that began in 1996, Spice Girls, but they are part of our landscape. she loved the lite that was a positive the girls have had issues. Mel B and Geri didn’t They were pre-Blair, pre-9/11 and pre-talent influence on them while growing up. Girl

r the sunda y fo get on, with the latter quitting at the height of ‘i f they hadn’t been shows as we know them now, when you really power, she reckons, is neither ephemeral nor their fame in 1998. These days, it’s Mel B and had to push the door down to get into record complex. It’s just the idea that being a girl is who the tabloids believe are the spice girls, companies — and they did. The songs are about good, and girls can do anything. End of. Angry and Snooty Spice, claiming they fell out friendship and fame. What drives friendship? “That’s the great thing the Spice Girls y cha r lie g a when Victoria, now a high-end fashion they’d have been What destroys it?” She didn’t want the show to had,” she says. “You could be whoever you designer, refused to lend Mel B a pricey frock be their story, but wanted a “strong essence” of wanted to be. You could just be a girl — from her collection to wear on TV. in the west end’ that moment in time. But who would write it? a tomboy girl, a pretty girl, a busty girl. I love At the press conference to unveil the show I meet Saunders at the , them because they were never sexualised.

r a p hs b A ll p hotog in June, Beckham, 38, delivered her requisite where the show opens in four weeks’ time. She They could be sexy, but were never a

16 Magazine 11.11.2012 The Sunday Times Magazine 11.11.2012 17 VIVA FOREVER!

overtly for a male audience. They never she’s Judy Craymer with played on sexiness.” the dolls that she arranges depending Saunders thinks that since the on how the real Spices are getting on Spices ruled the charts, the fame game has got “shoddy”. TV talent contests bringing the Spice legacy to a new have taken over, and a negative, generation,” she gabbles happily. bullying vibe permeates. Also, “Spice Girls is about unifying the whatever you think of their songs, it’s world — every age, every gender, hard not to concede the Spices were everyone. It’s woman power, people good at being famous: pinching power, it’s an essence, a tribe.” Scary Charles’s bottom, hanging out with says the show “reminds you that your Nelson Mandela, wearing flag-based best girlfriend — you want to be there couture. “What have we got now — for her more than anybody else”. Little Minx, ? Is that what it out.’ This would go on for two days, and she’d Which begs the question, are there they’re called?” she tuts about X Factor 2011’s say, ‘I’ll bring it round tomorrow personally.’ still strong friendships among the girls today? girl-band winners. “They look a bit dull So the bell goes the next day, she comes in and “It’s like a family,” says Halliwell. “Families already. Too much hair.” hands me the envelope. We have a drink, she are never perfect, but there is always that But what would it be like for a group of more goes, I open the envelope — and it’s not the foundation of love.” Craymer has seen it up interesting girls with big dreams and short script at all. It’s the old script without any close. “We went out for dinner — Jen and I, skirts trying to make it today? The story took changes that she gave me with a straight face.” Mel B, Mel C, Emma and Geri — and it was like shape as Saunders typed away. Meet Viva, a Thankfully, she says, the result was worth it. squabbling sisters. ‘Oh, don’t start!’ ‘Here she plucky upstart who lives on a houseboat in Watching rehearsals is certainly a gas. In the goes!’, but in a good way. The launch was the groovy Camden in northwest London, who is packed dance studio, Sally Dexter (in the first time I’d been a room with all five of them. auditioning for telly’s biggest show (a thinly “Arlene Phillips” role) takes the empty stage as I remember Simon saying, ‘Just wait till you get disguised X Factor) with her mates. Naturally, the starts up. “Look at me,” she sings, as all five in a room’ — and it is quite powerful.” the judges, a cynical coven of manipulative if it’s 4am and she’s well into the merlot. “I’m really proud of the Spice Girls,” Fuller media ghouls, offer her a chance to go to the “You can take it all because this face is free… emails from LA. “They are a force of nature. next stage without her pals. Gasp! What will I can even do reality.” On the word “reality”, What they achieved will probably never be she do? Toss in maternal guilt, adoption issues, two dozen performers dressed as talent-show achieved again in the modern music industry.” love stories and an Arlene Phillips-style cameramen and make-up artists swarm the Thoughts such as these weigh on Saunders as struggle with ageing, and you gotta show, folks. stage. To the strains of Halliwell’s 1999 solo hit she faces the looming spectre of opening night. It does sound a bit flimsy on paper — but then Look at Me, they begin administering Botox and “Are Spice Girls fans going to be disappointed? so does Mamma Mia!, and more than 50m fake tan in time to the music, as the face-lifted Are comedy fans going to be disappointed?” people have sat down in a theatre to watch it. judges warble “Real plastic! Fantastic!” and she frets. This being her first musical, she feels But Mamma Mia! had Abba’s classics as its “My little white lies tell a story!” Camp doesn’t less sure than she is with TV audiences. “I can’t bedrock. Can the Spices’ gossamer-thin radio cover it, though the satire is pinprick sharp. figure out what it will look like because I’ve pop really work as song-and-dance numbers? The Spice Girls are glad Saunders’s script been so involved in the process. But I think it’s has a bit of bite. “The culture has changed so OK… If not, on the night it will be ‘Taxi! Taxi!’ ” he Spices — always shrewd judges of dramatically in 16 years,” Mel C — aka Sporty Perhaps the pressure is even greater for how far they could stretch their talents — — tells me when she stops by rehearsals later Craymer, with all theatreland wondering if she thought so. “We had a hilarious first in the week. “Sometimes I think, are the Spice can pull off a second mega-hit that goes on to T meeting,” says Craymer. “Jen was just Girls to blame? Were they the catalyst for what Broadway and . “I’d probably have coming through her chemo and I’ve got this celebrity culture would become? But I think to retire somewhere very far away,” she says, at powerful air-conditioning unit that had to be on there was a naivety about us — an innocence. the thought of it being a dud. Not one to panic, or off, depending. Both of us were hot anyway I feel that’s a bit lost now.” though, she says it will still all be worth it so with the Spices in here, and it was midsummer. Ginger, gloriously barking as ever, is on a long as Posh brings her husband to the So I’m on the iPod while we’re telling them the more explicit mission. “[The show] is about opening. “I just want to meet David Beckham. story, so if Jen lost her way, I’d just press a Three years of hard work finally pays off.” button.” Craymer and Saunders have laughed a “Ha-ha,” laughs Saunders when I tell her lot during the process, which is just as well. this. “I think that’s probably true. It’s a very “She’s always minxy about her delivery,” ‘ if this musical isn’t expensive date.” n says Craymer of Saunders’s attitude to Viva Forever! opens for previews at the Piccadilly deadlines. “I set her a delivery day — usually a a hit, I’ll have to Theatre, London W1, on November 27. To book few days before she really had to deliver — but tickets, visit: vivaforeverthemusical.com then I get the phone call. Then the email. Then retire somewhere the agent going, ‘Any minute now.’ Then Jen See Jennifer Saunders and Mel C behind will be on the phone going, ‘I just need to print very far away’ the scenes at the Spice Girls musical at: thesundaytimes.co.uk/vivaforever

76 The Sunday Times Magazine 12.2.2012 The Sunday Times Magazine 11.11.2012 19