Nancy hopeful bids for votes

A GIFTED Killarney teenager could win a leading role in a London West End production of Oliver.

Jessie Buckley, 18, is competing in a BBC talent search for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

She has made the final shortlist of 12 for the coveted role of Nancy. will Viewers will choose the winner in the talent show I’d Do Anything, hosted by Cork-born comedian Graham Norton.

Two other finalists, Niamh Perry and Rachel Tucker, hail from Belfast. Thousands originally auditioned for the part.

Only people in Britain can vote but a campaign has started in Killarney, asking people to urge friends or relations in Britain to vote for Jessie.

“Please ask anybody in the UK to watch the programme and if they think Jessie is worthy of a vote, to vote for her,” her uncle Sean Buckley of the Arbutus Hotel, Killarney, said.

Jessie is the daughter of well-known harpist and soprano Marina Cassidy and hotelier Tim Buckley. At the age of seven, she appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

More recently, she played a leading role in the Killarney Musical Society’s production of Carousel.

* I’d Do Anything is screened on BBC1, on Saturdays, at 7.05pm