Sugababes singer Amelle Berrabah injured on BBC's Tumble

Sugababes singer Amelle Berrabah injured on BBC's Tumble

By Katy Finbow

Sunday, Aug 3 2014, 09:47 BST

Amelle Berrabah has been injured while training for BBC's Tumble.

The Sugababes star had just completed a move when she dislocated her ankle, causing permanent injury, reports The Daily Star.

© BBC

Berrabah said: "I was celebrating landing a move and my ankle popped out and I just fell to the floor. It's happened since and I've had it strapped up.

"It's much bigger than the other ankle now and it's going to stay that way. I'm disfigured for the rest of my life."

The singer will remain on the BBC gymnastics show and is seeing a physio to help with the "exhausting" training schedule.

"Training is very gruelling," she said. "I'm seeing the physio twice a week.

© BBC

"It's physically exhausting and a test of your mind as well."

Fellow Tumble celebrity Mr Motivator was forced to leave the competition earlier this week (July 28), after dislocating his knee during a trial run of the programme.

Steps member Ian H Watkins also shared photos online of the hand injuries he suffered while training for the reality show.

Tumble starts this month (August) on BBC One.

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The Guardian: Porgy and Bess review – exquisitely sung Gershwin in the fresh air

Porgy and Bess review – exquisitely sung Gershwin in the fresh air

Regent's Park Open Air theatre, London
The singing is easy but life is hard in Timothy Sheader's refreshingly spare production

• 
• • Lyn Gardner
  •  
  • The Guardian, Tuesday 29 July 2014 12.32 BST
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Shorn of sentimentality … Cedric Neal, centre, in Porgy and Bess. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

For the poor, black residents of Catfish Row, Georgia, in the 1920s, the living is never easy. But in the Gershwins' story of the unlikely coupling of two outsiders, the disabled Porgy (Rufus Bonds Jr) and the outcast, drug-taking Bess, life may be hard as iron but it's always tuneful. In Timothy Sheader's sensibly trimmed, finely nuanced and exquisitely sung revival, the lullabies, laments and spirituals shiver in the air like a series of reproaches to a world of hardship and rough justice. As night falls across Regent's Park, the music stalks and haunts the shadows.

The show – and here it is more show than opera – comes wrapped in a 19th-century melodramatic operatic tradition. Katrina Lindsay's ugly, beaten-copper design serves little purpose, despite glowing red in moments of high tension and as the deadly hurricane descends. But being outside the walls of a theatre releases the show from artificiality, and there is a spareness in Sheader's production that cuts through the sentimentality. It reveals the realities of a world where local police can treat the black population with casual viciousness.

But the rules of the community itself are laid bare, too. The production highlights what it means to be a man in a community where manhood is constantly undercut by white outsiders, and seldom has the judgment of women by women seemed quite so harsh. There are moments when Catfish Row seems like the loneliest place in the world, when the isolated, "indecent" Bess sees nothing but turned backs. Imaginative use is made throughout of tables and chairs, particularly in the closing moments as the limping Porgy sets out – a tiny David against the Goliath of the world, intent on an impossible task.

In a crimson dress, Nicola Hughes's mesmerising Bess is a real scarlet woman. She twirls like a dangerous, dancing flame, her limbs jerking to the puppetmaster-like directions of two useless men: the brutal, murderous Crown (Phillip Boykin), and the dandyish, Sporting Life (Cedric Neal), who supplies her with the "happy dust" she uses to self-medicate her pain.

There are also fine supporting performances, particularly from the women. Sharon D Clarke is powerfully defiant as Mariah, Golda Rosheuvel finds both the pain and generosity as the widowed Serena, and Jade Ewen brings a moving simplicity to Clara, who follows her heart and pays the price.

• Until 23 August. Box office: 0844 826 4242. Venue: Regent's Park Open Air theatre, London.

'Fans hated me': Tumble star Amelle Berrabah bids to restore reputation - Daily Star

'Fans hated me': Tumble star Amelle Berrabah bids to restore reputation

POP babe Amelle Berrabah has told how she struggled to cope when her run-ins with police left her public image in tatters.

By Ed Gleave/Published 3rd August 2014

BATTLE: Amelle is hoping to wow fans on the gym show [Wayne Starr]

The ex-Sugababe, 30, feared fans hated her after she was arrested several times and then convicted of drink-driving.

Lifting the lid on her troubled past, Amelle said: “I read stuff about myself that was so awful. If the person I was reading about was someone else I wouldn’t like that girl. I’d be thinking ‘Really – she got in her car and drove like that?’

“I felt like I had to explain myself to everyone. It got to the point where I just couldn’t do it any more.”

Amelle hit the headlines in 2007 and 2008 when she was arrested for alleged assault and criminal damage, with all charges later being dropped.

But her image suffered a massive blow in 2010 when she admitted drink-driving and was banned.

“In life you have to admit your faults and just deal with it”

Amelle Berrabah

Amelle said: “In life you have to admit your faults and just deal with it. I was told I could try and get off the charge because I was only just over the limit.
“I’d been out and went home and slept and then woke up and drove – I didn’t drive home from a night out.
“But I wanted to put my hands up and admit what I’d done.
“The thing about being in the public eye is if you make a mistake it follows you for the rest of your life. You have fewer chances.”
Amelle is hoping her stint on new BBC1 reality show Tumble will restore her ­reputation.
She said: “Being in Sugababes is like a tattoo – people think we’re very serious no matter how smiley we are.
“I think I got the brunt of it more than the other girls. But now people see me on my own and they’re saying ‘You’re different from what I expected’. It would be nice to be known for who I really am.”
Training for the gymnastics contest, which launches next Saturday, has already seen Amelle suffer a crippling injury that has left her with permanent damage.

She said: “I was celebrating landing a move and my ankle popped out and I just fell to the floor. It’s happened since and I’ve had it strapped up.
“It’s much bigger than the other ankle now and it’s going to stay that way. I’m disfigured for the rest of my life.
“Training is very gruelling. I’m seeing the physio twice a week. It’s physically exhausting and a test of your mind as well.”
Amelle has sometimes been in tears training for four hours a day over the past two months.
But she is determined to compete in honour of her dad who died from cancer in 2002.
She said: “I know he’ll be watching and I know he’ll be giving a little kick to say ‘You can do this’. I think about him every day because everything reminds me of him. I try to make him proud every day.”