When you switch on to Britain’s Got Talent on a Sunday night, seeing something unusual is pretty much par for the course. Last year’s performing dog winner aside, on any one night you might get a donkey ‘painting’ with the brush held in his mouth, a man in a tinfoil balaclava or a woman wearing a bra made out of a paper cut-out of Simon Cowell heads.

But this Sunday evening will see a first on the not-always talent show – a musical, rather than a person, being entered as a contestant.

Composer Danny Davies, from North Finchley, was anxiously waiting in the wings with writer and lyricist Pete Gallagher and choreographer Stuart Sweeting as their cast of 16 performed a number from their musical Chasing the Dream, at the audition at the London Palladium back in January.

“We were all pretty excited, but very nervous,“ laughs Danny, who teaches music at Haberdasher Aske’s School for Girls in Elstree, “in particular about what Simon Cowell would say because we weren’t quite sure how he would take to original music theatre.“

The team were also a little concerned about what the audience would make of material that they’d never heard before from an act they weren’t familiar with.

“There were a lot of unknowns,“ Danny admits. “It was either crazy or brave of us, I’m not sure which!“

One of the highlights of the show is undoubtedly hosts Ant and Dec’s comments on and reactions to the acts.

“They were really excited about how different what we were doing was,“ says Danny, 40. “They were very much as you see them on TV – very sweet and genuinely interested.“

Danny, Pete and Stuart had to wait off-stage while their cast performed, and it was nerve-wracking stuff.

“We’d had no rehearsal time on stage, but we were very happy with how they did,“ says Danny. “We could kind of see them from the side, but we couldn’t really hear clearly what they were doing out front, but from what we could see it all looked pretty much as planned.“

Danny explains why he, as composer, chose the song Living the Dream to perform on the night.

“We were looking for a song that was very accessible and one that used all the cast, and this one is up-tempo, lots of energy and it kind of sums up the show.“

Writer Pete Gallagher agrees. “It’s such a strong song so hopefully it might encourage the judges to trust that the rest of the musical must be pretty good as well. It would be wonderful if, from this snippet, they think it’s worth the attention.“

The aim is to get the show produced and touring – but we’ll have to wait until Sunday night to see how the boys did – Danny’s sworn to secrecy. But I get the feeling they’ve at least done better than the painting donkey last week.

  • Chasing the Dream’s audition will be screened on Britain’s Got Talent on ITV on Sunday, May 26 at 8pm.