Mamma Mia! Mark's career is '˜cruising' ahead

Coleraine actor Mark Adamson is about to embark on quite literally the biggest job of his theatrical career - joining the cast of hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia on board the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas.

32-year-old Mark told the Times: “I’ve been working on Cunard ships for the last three years and had been thinking of having a change. As much as I loved working in the beautiful theatres on their ships, I really missed doing a full scale musical. I was in London visiting some friends and heard there was an open audition for Mamma Mia at Pineapple Dance Studios and thought I might go along and try.

“I turned up at 8am in the morning and there was already a huge queue of people. I nearly turned away at the thought of there being so many talented people all going of the same job as me. The guy behind me started chatting to me, we got on really well soI just stayed on and signed up.

The audition process was gruelling to say the least.

“I went in and and said hello to 10 or 11 directors, producers, choreographers, camera crew and runners. I had 16 bars of music to show what I could do and that is extremely difficult but I sang “Don’t Stop Me Now” which is one of the hardest and highest songs you can sing - especially at 10 o’clock in the morning!

“They asked to hear another song and they asked if i could dance and to measure it from a scale of 1-10. Using my nervous humour I told them I was a 15 (clearly kidding)”. Mark was called back the next day for a dance audition (“It was one of the most nerve racking moments of my life”) and then the next day for a more rigorous test.

“They gave me six other songs to learn and some script to read. I worked all night on them and went in the next day and sang lots more and read scripts with lots of different people. With that, the gruelling process had come to an end with a smile and a thank you from the panel.

“I waited for only about a week and got an email through to say they wanted me to understudy the three dads in Mamma Mia and be in the ensemble and be a lead vocalist in their other show that they do.”