Maria winner bids to beat A&R snobbery.

As it faces a race against time to get the Connie Fisher album into the shops for next Monday, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group believes the success of BBC1's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? can bring about a genuine return of musical theatre to the charts.

With around 8m tuning in for the final of the Saturday evening show last month, RUG head of records Tris Penna believes the winner's debut album of cover versions will go Top 10 and will continue to sell in the run-up to Christmas and beyond. He also believes it will help break down preconceptions in the industry about the type of music that sells.

"There is a snobbery within the music business and they'd much rather have four white boys with a drummer, two guitarists and a singer," says Penna. "But the feedback from young people to the show has been really interesting, and the shows when we started using music theatre tracks rather than pop tracks proved far more popular."

Fisher's album is being released through Universal's new Fascination label, which is confident of turning the singer into a star with long- term chart potential. The label signed the singer after she won the BBC1 talent show on September 16. Within a week, the album was completed, artwork designed and television ads signed off, making it one of the ...