She’s been a pop star, a model, a TV talent show judge, and now Cheryl has reinvented herself once again, this time as an actor – and it seems a pretty good one at that.
The former Girls Aloud singer and X Factor judge has won near unanimous praise from critics after making her West End debut in spooky thriller 2:22: A Ghost Story.
In it, she plays a woman called Jenny (a role previously played by the likes of Lily Allen, Giovanna Fletcher and Laura Whitmore), who becomes convinced that her house is haunted.
The show, which recently moved to the Lyric Theatre in London after first opening last year, held its press night on Wednesday, which saw usually hard-to-impress theatre critics invited to pass judgement on the new cast, which also features returning star and former EastEnders actor Jake Wood, alongside Scott Karim and Louise Ford.
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With her casting having initially proved to be a surprise to both her fans and theatre obsessives, Cheryl has won them over with her debut – here’s what the critics had to say of her performance…
“Cheryl transcends the fact that she arrives on stage pursued by celebrity glitter. At first she’s both funny and down to earth as Jenny, who is left on her own in a large house while her husband, Sam, is working. An early joke about drinking gin and producing ‘breast milk slammers’ lands well. If there’s a concern it’s that she’s a little too understated, but then between the screaming fox sex and the more inexplicable bumps in the night supernatural tensions rise and Cheryl proves herself more than able to ride the emotional rollercoaster.”
“Cheryl makes her debut in the glare of the West End. As her own X Factor moment, it is respectable enough for a first go, if blunt-edged: big on volume and sudden, thunderous anger.
“In fairness, the others are just as shouty. In this haunted-house tale that begins as a comedy of manners, Cheryl convincingly plays rattled new mother Jenny, who is the one…
