The One to Watch: Rebecca Ferguson

Who's she, then?
Who's she? Have you been living in a cave for the last two months?

Yes, actually. Luckily, the Yanks weren't put in charge of rescuing me. But I can tell you, when you're being held “at Al-Quaeda's Pleasure”, X-Factor is right off the list of spare time activities.
Oh, sorry. Hope you got back in one piece – as it were. Anyway, Rebecca is the Liverpool lass who's stunning singing voice has had the X-Factor judges in rhapsodies, particularly Simon Cowell (“this was the night you turned into a star.”) and Cheryl Cole (“I love Scousers.”)

Not another mouthy Scouser on a reality TV show?!
Far from it. Indeed, she's so bereft of self-confidence that she refused to sing for her boyfriend until TWO YEARS after they met. And even then he had to face the wall to spare her embarrassment.

Funny, that. The missus says she can't bear to look at me when she's performing. But I digress . . .
Yes, well, she has the singing voice of Billie Holliday and the speaking voice of Billy Butler with his plums held in a vice. Her dreams of being a diva contrast with her struggle to bring up two young children, Lillie May, five, and Karl, four, by herself, in a deprived area of north Liverpool.

Hmm, a single mum whose best suggestion for supporting her kids is to become a major recording artist? The Tories must love her.
Tch, tch, less of the stereotyping, if you don't mind. The Tories probably do love her; she's fitted the considerable responsibility of being a single mum with studies to become a legal secretary (“a great student who worked really hard”, said one teacher) – and she goes to church every Sunday.

Bloody hell, she's practically prime minister material. I bet her old school's made up for her.
“The whole of Gateacre School is right behind Rebecca,” a local newspaper excitedly reports. Whether that was the case when Rebecca actually attended the school in less certain; the 24-year-old recalls how her childhood was plagued by bullying and racism –