Over 4 million viewers watch BBC One’s musical special

Over 4 million viewers watched a night of musicals on BBC One last night.

An average audience of 4.1 million tuned in to BBC One’s Musicals: The Greatest Show on Sunday evening, making it one of the most watched shows of the weekend.

The numbers rivalled those of the Six Nations Rugby, with 4.4 million watching Wales v Ireland earlier in the day.

What’s more, the figures don’t include those watching online or who catch up later with the show available on the BBC iPlayer for a year.

The one-off 80-minute special was packed with showstoppers from the West End’s biggest productions performed by a host of stage stars accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra

Performances included Amanda Holden and Sheridan Smith singing I Know Him So Well, from Chess; Nicole Scherzinger singing Never Enough from The Greatest Showman and Michael Ball performing You Can’t Stop The Beat from Hairspray.

There were also performances from West End shows such as Hamilton, Six The Musical, Dear Evan Hansen, The Tina Turner Musical, MAMMA MIA!, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Dreamgirls, The Phantom Of The Opera, Wicked and Funny Girl.

Plus, Ivano Turco gave an exclusive first performance of Only You, Lonely You from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new Cinderella musical.

Alongside the TV broadcast, an extended show is available to listen on BBC Sounds here after originally airing on BBC Radio 2.

Picture: Layton Williams – © BBC – Photographer: Guy Levy

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About the author: Josh Darvill

Josh is Stageberry's editor with over five years of experience writing about theatre in the West End and across the UK. Prior to following his passion for musicals, he worked for more than a decade as a TV journalist.