Walk The Line: Bishop's Stortford singer Scarlet Thomas close to winning £500,000 on ITV's new talent show
Bishop’s Stortford singer Scarlet Thomas’ talents took her to the brink of a £500,000 prize when she competed in ITV’s new music talent show, Walk The Line.
The 19-year-old wowed the celebrity judges and the audience with her interpretation of Something’s Got a Hold on Me as she challenged for the jackpot on Friday (Dec 17) on the final night of the six-night competition.
The former Herts and Essex High School student faced a nailbiting wait as returning champion Nadiah Adu-Gymafi, 30, decided to gamble on having won the audience vote and “walked the line”. Already an established recording artist, she clinched victory.
For Scarlet, currently studying at London’s International College of Musical Theatre, the chance to showcase her talents was a priceless opportunity. “It was a really fun and cool experience,” she said.
She was approached in August to appear in The X Factor creator Simon Cowell’s new show, hosted by Glow Up’s Maya Jama, and after rigorous auditions in September, she learned in October she had made the final cut of 25 acts.
The next step was choosing her song and she settled on the upbeat tune made famous by Etta James and then Christina Aguilera in Scarlet’s favourite film, Burlesque.
She said: “I wanted to do something where I could squeeze all my favourite things into it.”
Craig David, a judge along with Gary Barlow, Alesha Dixon and Dawn French, told her: “You came out, opened the whole thing like a star, setting the tone for the whole thing. I’m so happy to see that, because that’s what you want in a final. Vocally, you hit all the notes, all the moments. You look like a star, you sound like a star...”
After classical singer Rodney Earl Clarke, a four-piece group called The Beatbox Collective and soloist Greg Charles also performed, Scarlet was shocked to learn she had made the final cut.
She said: “I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think I was getting top challenger – I was really beating myself up about the things I thought I’d done wrong.”
Scarlet is an experienced performer. She starred in the lead role of Tracy Turnblad in Bishop’s Stortford Musical Theatre Company Youth’s March 2019 production of Hairspray at the former Rhodes Arts Complex and won Bishop’s Stortford music festival Bish Bash’s Sounds Like Teen Spirit talent contest in 2018, with the prize of appearing on the festival’s main stage.
She is also comfortable in more intimate settings – appearing at Retune at The Horn at the Half Moon in September – but her TV debut tested her nerves to the limit. She said: “My fight or flight mode kicked in – I knew it had to be absolutely perfect.”
For now she is continuing with her drama studies in London, commuting from the home she shares in Bishop’s Stortford with mum Natalie, a teacher, her electrician dad Spencer and 16-year-old brother Tristan, a student at Hockerill Anglo-European College.
