Reality TV star Kerry Katona has been cast as Marilyn in a new stage show, Norma Jeane: The Musical, reports BBC News.
“Pashun said: ‘I needed an actor of huge talent, personality and experience – Kerry was at the top of my list.’
The former Atomic Kitten singer’s first performance will be at an industry-only audience on 22 September in central London.
Belvedere, who also wrote WAG! The Musical, added: ‘This show will change the shape of people’s perceptions of Marilyn Monroe and we expect to announce a new star of drama on stage and screen with Kerry’s performance.’Katona, who recently announced she was bankrupt, said that she was ready to take to the stage as one of the world’s most famous screen legends.
The 32-year-old said: ‘I’m thrilled to have been given this opportunity to play one of the world’s biggest female icons and can’t wait to get to work.’
‘A successful career in drama has always been a main goal of mine and this role is a challenge but one I’m going to grab with both hands.’
Writers say the script ‘isn’t an ordinary bio/drama’ and that Belvedere has included little known facts from Marilyn Monroe’s life.
The show will feature original songs from a writing team including Jay Aston, Geoff Cotton, Orna Klement and Tony Bayliss.”
Of course, this announcement has met with widespread incredulity. Katona first found fame in girlband Atomic Kitten during the early 2000s. Since her departure, however, she has been better known for her messy private life.
Kerry first impersonated Marilyn Monroe on a celebrity special of TV’s Stars In Their Eyes in 2004, where she sang ‘Winter Wonderland.’ Her acting experience, though, is quite limited.
While this may seem like a classic case of opportunistic celebrity casting for maximum publicity value, maybe there’s a small chance that she’ll win us over. Her former manager, Andy McCluskey, spoke to the Telegraph earlier this year:
“‘I love Kerry Katona!’ he proclaimed of their vivacious but erratic star, who went on to become a fixture of Britain’s tabloids and star of reality TV shows such as I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here. ‘The first time I met her I told her, “You’re going to be a star, because you’ve got Marilyn Monroe syndrome. You’re gorgeous but you don’t know it.”‘
‘She was going to be a Page 3 model, but she couldn’t because she’d been in foster care and she was under eighteen,’ McCluskey says of Katona. ‘So I said give me a year and let me see if I can make you into a pop star because you’re just amazing. She couldn’t sing. But Liz and Natasha could sing, and Kerry was like the secret hand grenade: you’d throw her in the room and she’d just explode. Everybody loves her.'”