Sonia’s still feisty and fantastic

Oct 5 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

FOR nine-to-fivers who switch off the television set at 11pm and head for bed, the showbiz life must be a very different world.

Take the case of Liverpool singer Sonia. The other night, she found herself going on stage at 2.30 in the morning singing in a Manchester gay club.

While others may shake their heads with disbelief, Sonia would not have it any other way.

She was launched into the pop world at the age of 17 and, 20 years later, she is still busy working and, by all accounts, still having fun.

She has toured the world, had a series of hit singles, played in musicals in the West End, played daughter Bunty to Paul O’Grady’s Lily Savage, and even represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest.

She sang Better the Devil You Know in the contest and came second. “I lost to Ireland by one point,” she declares. “We gave Ireland 12 points and they gave us nothing.” It was, however, a “fantastic experience”, a phrase she uses about most things in her life.

There was also the reality television show, Reborn in the USA, in which she joined other stars whose profiles had slipped in performing around the USA, with one act a week evicted by viewers’ votes.

The early days did not go well – “there was a lot of arguing and crazy things happening” – and she decided to head for home. She was already up against the duo Dollar for eviction.

On the way to the airport, her sister rang and convinced her to go back. Unfortunately, David Van Day, of Dollar, was not happy to see her return (Dollar lost the eviction vote) and there was what Sonia calls “a falling out”.

She survived for six weeks, did eventually have a “fantastic” time, but was not sad about returning as she missed her husband, Mark Moses, who is also her tour manager. The two met at Anfield Comprehensive and have been together ever since. “Because he is my tour manager as well as my husband, we are more or less joined at the hip and I missed him so much,” she says.

Sonia, 36, still gigs today, often in gay clubs. “I have had a huge gay following ever since my first single,” she says. “The clubs are great to play, no fighting and there’s a great atmosphere. I have played at the G.A.Y. club in London which is the biggest in the country, where people like Kylie and Beyoncé have performed.”

She even has her own gay anthem for the club-goers, a medley of songs, I Am What I Am, You Make Me Feel Mighty Real and Don’t Leave Me This Way. With such a body of work, it is easy to forget that she went to drama school at the age of eight, left with honours from her drama college, and appeared in both Bread and Brookside.

“I was as much into acting as singing and it depended what break I got first. Then I met Pete Waterman . . .” It was Waterman who produced her first record and, incidentally, decided she should use just a single name (the full name is Sonia Evans).

Now she is back in Liverpool and appearing in the stage musical drama, Good Golly Miss Molly, opening at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre tonight.

“It’s been going well,” she tells me in a rehearsal break.”It is a fantastic company, so talented and funny. The lads have got me in bulk.”

The company is much the same as has already appeared in Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels and Lost Soul at the same theatre, both massive hits and both directed by Good Golly’s director, Bob Eaton.

In the musical play written by Eaton and which has seen success elsewhere – and given a Liverpool touch by Brick Up writer Dave Kirby – Sonia plays Molly Eldon, a feisty woman fighting a plan to pull down the terraced street she calls home.

As part of the campaign, she stages a benefit concert featuring her old band from the 1960s, Ronnie Angel and The Devils.

In flashbacks, we are taken through Molly’s colourful life from the 1960s until the 1980s.

It is a proper acting job. “It is really the story of Molly’s life,” explains Sonia. “At school, the headmaster tells me to get my act together or I will end up in the Co-op like my sister and I do end up working there.”

Molly becomes a friend of singer Ronnie Angel (played by David Edge) and when he gets laryngitis, she goes on in his place to sing Twist and Shout.

There is an abortion, an affair with a druggie, and later another pregnancy and finally the fight to save her street, forming the Richard Street Residents’ Association.

“Molly is a little like me, she is feisty, strong-willed and has a good sense of humour. If there is one aspect of her that isn't me, it is her willingness to work in the Co-op.

“I have nothing against people who want to do that, but that wasn't me. I always wanted to go on stage and make something of my life.”

* GOOD Golly Miss Molly opens at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, tonight, and runs until November 3.