EXCLUSIVE: Meeting your idols is always daunting, but singer Zoe Birkett is having the time of her life on the road with Take That, and she couldn’t believe Gary Barlow personally selected her
They say never meet your heroes, but for singer Zoe Birkett, working with Take That is a dream come true. Zoe, who first found fame 25 years ago on Pop Idol alongside Will Young, Gareth Gates and Darius Campbell, is performing with the boyband on their The Circus Live tour – the follow-up to their record-breaking 2009 tour of the same name. She describes band members Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen as “the nicest guys in showbusiness”.
“I’m actually acting very cool, calm and collected around rehearsals at the moment, but my inner nine-year-old is screaming,” the 40-year-old tells the Mirror, excitedly. Of the tour, she adds: “It’s incredible. It’s bigger and better than the last Circus. Obviously, technology has advanced since they last did the show, so there are still very much the same elements, but everything is more enhanced.”
Zoe is thrilled that Gary handpicked her to perform the duet part in Relight My Fire, famously sung by Lulu, for the arena shows this summer. “It’s a real honour every time we come to Relight My Fire,” she says. “I’m standing between my favourite boyband – three men who I love and adore. It’s such a pinch-me moment.”
Away from the tour, Zoe has been building her reputation as a respected artist on the stage over the last two decades. Since she released her single Treat Me Like A Lady in 2003, which placed at No 12 in the UK charts, she’s appeared in West End musicals including Moulin Rouge, The Great British Bake Off, The Bodyguard, Thriller Live and most recently she played the titular character in Tina – The Tina Turner Musical.
“All I wanted was to have a long and successful career, to be in rooms where people say my name in a positive light,” she says. “There have been many ups and downs over the years, and I never say I’m lucky because I work super hard, but I do feel blessed that I’ve been able to sustain a career for 25 years.”
There are so many highlights of her time in the business, but none so prominent as becoming a mother. Zoe, who shares her daughter Aaria, nine, with husband Adam Tahir, says: “I thought women couldn’t do it all. In my head, when I was younger, I was like, ‘Once I have a child, that means I’m going to have to stop singing.’ How wrong I was.
“As soon as I became a mother, I realised that I wanted it even more. I had a new drive and purpose because I had a little girl. I had even more of a reason to show this young girl that you can keep going, that you can achieve your dreams, that women can push boundaries.”
But despite her love of pursuing her dreams while embracing motherhood, Zoe doesn’t pretend the juggle is easy. “It’s really hard,” she admits. “But there are so many working mothers out there. It’s a juggle, but I think most mothers will say that. It takes a village, it really does.”
Throughout the good times and bad, for Zoe, music has been therapy. Last year, the singer fell pregnant again while playing Tina but sadly miscarried. To cope with the grief she threw herself into work.
“I said, ‘What is it that I love other than my family?’ And that is music and performing, and entertaining other people. It really brings me so much joy. So a week after my miscarriage, I actually went back to Tina. And it was one of the best things that I did for me. Everyone has different ways of dealing with things, but for me, music and performing live is definitely my therapy.”
When speaking about her loss on social media four months later, Zoe says she didn’t realise how many people she knew had experienced the same pain. “We live in this fear, with guilt. Maybe it was us, did we do something wrong? But it’s not our fault.”
She reflects, “The response from people and women who’d been through it was overwhelming. And also male partners who go through it, as it’s not just women of course. The men are affected as well, my husband was affected.”
Growing up, there was no doubt that Zoe would follow in the footsteps of the greats, having been a fan of Tina Turner, Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, her idols. Having told her agent she needed to audition for Tina as it was “mammoth”, her audition came in when she was auditioning for The Witches at The National Theatre, and she had also been offered the role of Tess in Burlesque. The next day, she got offered the role of Tina. “Although playing Tess would have been amazing”, she admits, Tina was the one for her.
“Her career didn’t take off until she was 40, that’s so inspiring. She faced misogyny, racism, violence and ageism.” And Zoe had the full blessing from late Tina Turner’s estate. So much so that Tina’s widower, Erwin Bach, sent her a personal letter after flying in from Germany to watch the show. “He gave me one of Tina Turner’s earrings, which I have in a safe; he loved Tina,” she reveals.
Tina Turner’s husband is not the only dedicated fan of Zoe’s – she has a whole legion of followers who remember her Pop Idol days. Even a member of royalty is a fan – one of the sons of the Sultan of Brunei.
“He was a hardcore Zoe Birkett fan,” she says. “He used to come every single week to the studios [when she was on Pop Idol] and take me for dinner. We were a similar age, he was a lovely guy and obsessed with music. Over the years, I’ve performed for various royals, and it’s always another highlight, an honour.”
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