![]() ![]() Lead roles followed in Oklahoma! and The Boy Friend, as well as Spring Awakening at the Almeida. The reviews – ‘she is outstanding… full of energy and joy’ – the praise, the garlands, all said enough. I didn’t want to just be known as “the black Cosette”.’ So Okereke turned off her social media. ‘I knew people were going to have those views, but to be bombarded with them was overwhelming. ![]() She was the first black Cosette – a seminal moment for British theatre – and was lauded by many, but criticised by a racist minority online who considered it ‘not the way it’s meant to be’. In the theatre world, Okereke was already making her way: fresh out of drama school, she’d had award-winning roles on the stage – most notably playing Cosette in Les Misérables at the Sondheim Theatre in London. Nearly 20 years later, that feeling came back. It was a feeling in the pit of my stomach.’ It became an obsession.’ Her real obsession, though, was with Julie Andrews: ‘She just had such a phenomenal voice and was a beautiful presence.’Īnd if online was where it all began, then Okereke’s first visit to the Grand in Leeds, to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, only entrenched her love of theatre: ‘I barely remember the play, but I do remember walking into the old-fashioned music hall and feeling like I was in a movie or something. I went through a phase of watching that film every single day. ‘Because I was growing up when the internet was becoming a proper thing, you could watch anything,’ she says. As a child, she would study videos of Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds and Liza Minnelli on YouTube. ![]()
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