Nikki Webster aims to silence her critics with The Wizard of Oz

Nikki Webster is being swept off her feet. Two weeks into rehearsals of The Wizard of Oz, choreographer Kelly Aykers is nutting out a complicated dance number that sees the pocket-size Dorothy spun from partner to partner when one’s hands slip and Webster is flung into the air. She’s caught just before hitting the deck, but everyone gets a fright. “Be very careful with that young girl, please,” shouts Aykers over the piano that plays on in the rehearsal rooms at Gala studios in Sydney. “She’s very precious.” In fact, that this production is opening at all is due solely to the star power of this 14-year-old schoolgirl. “If she had said no, we wouldn’t have done it,” says Oz co-producer John Frost of the $6 million show, which opens on Nov 24 in Sydney before touring Melbourne and Brisbane early next year. “It has been done especially for her.”

Such high praise is fuel for the growing band of knockers who delight in making her the butt of public jibes – The Chaser satirical team has even included a Nikki Webster dartboard in The Chaser Annual. “Those of us who saw [the Olympic Opening Ceremony] will never forget her saccharine-sweet delivery, annoyingly precocious poise and overall utter vomituosness,” says co-editor Julian Morrow. But Webster isn’t letting it get to her. “I never thought my dream would come true so early,” marvels the polite and polished performer, who soared to fame as the “Hero Girl” of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. “If there’s pressure there, she’s not showing it,” says Frost, 49. “She’s a real pro.”

Since the age of 5 the youngest of two (brother Scott is 17) has worked towards centre stage with dance classes, TV commercials and parts in stage productions Cinderella, Aladdin, Les Miserables and The Sound of Music. In the past year she has become the face of cosmetics company Jager, and her platinum-selling first single “Strawberry Kisses” debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA charts, chased by gold-selling single “Depend On Me” from her album Follow Your Heart, which has sold 70,000 copies and counting. All earnings are put in a trust fund. “We don’t touch that,” says mother Tina. “It’s hers. It’s nothing to do with us.” So, for now, she says, “Mum still has to give me pocket money.”

Frost tips it will be the Oz role that will shoot Year 9 student Webster over the rainbow. “There are fans out there and there are people who don’t like her,” he acknowledges, but he believes “the shadowy ones will be very surprised.” The likes of Melbourne journalist Ben Butler, who in 1999 co-founded the “Molly Awards,” an Internet event “rewarding the very worst in Australian music,” won’t be easily won over. Butler, 28, says Webster’s stunning sweep of the dubious gongs this year – worst single, worst video, worst debut and ugliest sex symbol – was less about music than management. But shouldn’t he pick on someone his own size? Defends Butler: “When you put yourself into the public arena, you put yourself into the public arena.”

Ross Fraser, managing director of Gotham Records, which produced Follow Your Heart, sees his young star as “a very soft target,” and notes that her audience is 3-to-10-year-olds, “so she’s probably not going to come into favour with people who review adult records.” Fraser, 50, says Tina and Mark Webster have called the shots on Nikki’s image. “When we made the first video, we said, ‘Nikki. What do you want to wear?’ and her mum said, ‘She just wears her little hipster jeans and little crop tops.’ That’s what kids wear.” Fraser also points out that although she’s small for her age, she’ll be turning 15 in April. “People thought that girl at the Olympics was Nikki, but he was playing a role that [director] Ric Birch invented for her. He wanted her to look 10.”

Tina, 44, a childcare worker (Mark, 42, is an electrician), airily dismisses her daughter’s critics. “I don’t listen to them because I always know that if they criticise her, they haven’t met her.” Those who have find that “she’s very unaffected by the whole business,” says Wizard of Oz co-star Philip Gould, who plays the Tin Man. “There’s certainly no need to knock her down a peg or two.” Performer David Campbell, 28, met Webster in 1997 and stays in touch. “She is going somewhere fast but she’s a good kid who deserves it – she works her guts out,” he says. And he appeals to the knockers: “She may not want to be in this industry for the rest of her life, but let’s not make it an unpleasant experience for her so that she’s forced out.” Webster herself sees only rainbows. “I’m so happy and I love what I’m doing,” she says. “Sometimes I think if people criticise, maybe they’re a little bit jealous. I want to be around for a long time.” – Jennie Noonan

Source: Who Magazine
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