On Saturday evening (January 20) the show returned for its fourth week of the new series, with Mo Gilligan, Davina McCall and Jonathan Ross in the hot seat once more, with Rita Ora still missing.
During the special school disco episode, ITV viewers saw performances from Piranha, Owl, Eiffel Tower, Air Fryer and Bubble Tea who was eventually unmasked.
Underneath the colourful bubbly costume was Absolutely Fabulous star Julia Sawalha who was unveiled after her performance of Le Freak – and her on-screen mum Jennifer didn’t have a clue.
Here’s a reminder of tonight’s performance #MaskedSingerUK 🎭🎶 pic.twitter.com/b0GzI0GFGk
— #MaskedSingerUK (@MaskedSingerUK) January 20, 2024
Before the pair emotionally reunited on stage, Julia said: “The panel’s guesses were just so hilarious. I couldn’t believe they thought I was Hannah Waddingham.
“I thought Jennifer (Saunders) got pretty close with Bubble (the character from Absolutely Fabulous). I think they did fairly well.”
The Masked Singer star ‘point blank refused’ to wear Weather costume mask
But now speaking to the Metro, The Masked Singer’s costume designer has revealed some behind-the-scenes “drama” from earlier on in the series due to a last-minute costume change.
Tim Simpson said the iconic Dionne Warwick who was inside the costume of Weather was “great fun” but before she went on stage to sing Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now, there was a “dramatic moment”.
“Dionne Warwick came on and she tried her mask on and she just took it off and said, ‘I’m not wearing that’, because we have a particular type of head cradle inside the mask,” he explained.
Tim added: “We had about four and a half hours before she was due on stage, and she had point blank refused to wear it as it stood.
“I had to rip out the head cradle, at which point she looked at me and went, ‘okay, now we’re in business,’ as the producers looked on just with horror, like sheer horror, as I’m tearing apart this mask that we’ve spent so many weeks working on.”
When it came to reassuring Dionne about the urgent alterations, he commented: “I said, ‘look, I’ve done this temporary fix to it and I’ve held it together with pins, I’ve pointed them away from your head. I hope that’s okay.’ And she looked at me as if to say, ‘really?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna fit, but this is the best I’ve got right now.’ She goes, ‘it’ll be fine.”’
He went on to say: “We popped it on her head and she went, ‘that’s great. let’s crack on.’ And it was excellent.
“It was one of those moments where there was a huge sigh of relief, because the performers have got to be comfortable in their masks and to have somebody who just doesn’t feel comfortable in the mask, it’s fair enough.
“They’ve got to go out and sing and they’ve got to perform and so they’ve got to be feeling all right about it and she just didn’t feel comfy in it. It didn’t fit her head and it needed a rethink very, very fast.”
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Praising the celebrities, Tim shared: “They’re professionals and they know that ultimately, when push comes to shove, they’ll step out onto the stage and they’ll be amazing again, and that’s what she’s used to doing. So she steps out on stage and whammo, there you are.”
According to the Metro, a representative for Dionne said through their “observations” from working with her, “she always puts perfection into all the work she does”.
The Masked Singer continues on ITV and ITVX on Saturday, January 26 from 7pm.
