Amelle Berrabah has been driving a lot recently. The singer, best known for her time as one of three Sugababes between 2005 and 2011, has been starring in new musical Soul Sisters since late March, touring it across the UK. After every show, she gets in her car and drives home to the south of England, from wherever she is in the country, to be with her three-year-old daughter Amirah.
Amelle: “Because I am a mother, and my daughter has [to go to] nursery, I can’t bring her all around the country — she’d be absolutely shattered! It’s the right thing to do for me because it makes me sleep better when I’m with my daughter. I always feel like there’s something missing when I’m not with her.”
The Indiependent: The average person may not have heard all that much from Berrabah since Sugababes called it a day more than a decade ago. Once tabloid fodder, she’s since taken a step back from the limelight. That, however, is a conscious choice, and one that allows her to balance life as a single mother (she divorced her husband Marcio Sousa Rosa in 2020), with work that she’s passionate about.
“I like just having a bit of a simple, peaceful life. I’m quite quiet and I’m very content. I do my little thing quietly. But I also can’t help that I love performing, and I love theatre, so it’s about getting that balance of doing something that I love and being out there, and then I come back a little bit.”
Berrabah’s love of performance first brought her to the theatre stage in 2019, when she starred alongside X Factor winner Joe McElderry in touring 80s throwback musical Club Tropicana. Three years and a pandemic later and she’s back for round two, playing the “flirtatious” yet “kind of annoying” lead character Dionne in Soul Sisters, a musical comedy also starring Bad Girls’ Nicole Faraday, and The Voice UK’s Wendi Harriott. The plot sees the trio, once a chart-topping 80s girl band called The Fabulettes, reunite at a holiday camp Soul Weekender where they have to “forgive and forget” the past to “pull off a performance of a lifetime”.
Berrabah is well-versed in the trials and tribulations of life in a girl band. The fractured relationships within Sugababes were certainly no secret — the group’s sixth album is brazenly titled Catfights and Spotlights. She knows how to manage the dynamics. How did her experience in Sugababes help her to understand the role of Dionne, and portray a girl band on stage?
“A lot, to be honest with you, because you’re all different. [In the Sugababes] there was this unspoken bond and respect that you have for one another because you’re all going through the same thing. You’re travelling a lot and you’re with each other 24/7, so you’re in this bubble with each other. You saw each other more than your own family members. This girl band within this musical show definitely reminds me of [being in Sugababes], of how close they are, how much they know each other inside out, and how you have to respect each other’s differences as well. It’s that thing of give and take and knowing that we’re not all the same. It’s keeping a balance within the band at all times.”
Despite her pop music past, Berrabah clearly has the voice for musical theatre, too: a quick search of audience reviews reveals that the vocals are the highlight of Soul Sisters. She also has the sparky personality for it. Over the phone, she is warm and voluble, talking about her character and the show’s use of original soul music with a genuine, refreshing enthusiasm.
“The music is 100 per cent original, even though [the writers] have captured the soul of that time. I don’t know how we’ve managed to do it, but it’s actually amazing. You almost feel like you’ve heard the music before, although you obviously haven’t because it’s brand new music.”
It’s a pleasant change for Berrabah to be out on the road and on stage again, even if it means driving hundreds of miles a week. The pandemic has been challenging; in early 2020, as well as splitting from her husband, Berrabah lost her mother, and struggled with the isolation that lockdown brought. After being stuck in a “time capsule” for two years, getting back into the groove of learning lines and dress rehearsals has been strange.
“Suddenly it was photoshoots, lots of people, hair and makeup – talking to you. I was like, oh god, this is different to what I’ve been used to! I know that everyone else has been feeling that way as well. Down to learning the script – I haven’t had to learn anything for so long. It’s kind of getting your brain back into shape, like going to brain gym.”
With both Club Tropicana and Soul Sisters added to her curriculum vitae, could musical theatre be Berrabah’s career path for the foreseeable? Perhaps. She’s in talks about taking on a new role in a show next April, but first she needs to get through the next five weeks — Soul Sisters is touring until the end of May. Then, and only if it works around her schedule with her daughter, will she start thinking about the next show.
“I really enjoy it to be honest with you…I’m very grateful for the fact that I can still do something that I love, dip a toe in here and there. I kind of have the best of both worlds.”
Soul Sisters is touring the UK until 29 May. Book tickets here.
Words by Marcus Wratten
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