If you’re on TikTok, you’ll probably recognise Hannah Lowther. Known affectionately as the “Tesco TikToker”, she found viral fame during lockdown by filming herself singing and dancing in the aisles of the supermarket during her shifts there.
“I got 10,000 views on a video and I thought: OK, that’s it, I’m famous, and I just never let it go,” the 27-year-old laughs. Since then, Lowther has built an audience of 1.2 million followers and leveraged her social media presence into a starry stage career, landing roles in West End musicals including Heathers and Six. “At the back of my mind, I was thinking: You know what? Maybe this could help me one day.”
Her career is the stuff of many young performers’ dreams. Using social media, Lowther took her career into her own hands, built an army of fans, and catapulted herself to the spotlight. Now, she stands at the forefront of a growing and debated shift in the industry: one that sees performers with big online followings take centre stage.
Lowther always knew she wanted to work in the theatre. Growing up in Basingstoke, she went to dance classes, but it was when she was cast as Brigitta Von Trapp in the West End production of The Sound of Music in 2008 that something clicked. “I remember going into the theatre and asking [the adult actors] what their jobs were,” she says. “Then I realised this was an option for me.”
Her teenage years were consumed by musical theatre. “I put the blinkers on. I thought: I’m going to do this and nothing else.” At 16, she took a three-year course at the drama school Italia Conti then, at 19, went on to the London School of Musical Theatre. “I graduated in 2019, did a panto at Christmas, and then in 2020, coronavirus happened,” Lowther says. “I got put on pause. The whole world did.”
Except Lowther didn’t stop. She took a job at Tesco and, “out of pure boredom”, made her first TikTok video. Her early posts saw her belting out musical theatre hits to products on the shelves and high-kicking in front of the tills. “I was feeling like my musical theatre spark was diminishing,” she says. “I just thought surely someone else must feel the same.”
She was right. Her TikToks reached thousands and were picked up by BBC and ITV news. “It was crazy: people came to interview me, people came into the store … I’m just that theatre kid who loves attention, so it was my dream,” Lowther says. Even now, she shakes her head in disbelief. “TikTok really helped me, and I say that with pride.”
Her unconventional route to the stage hasn’t been without its critics. Despite training at two of the UK’s top drama schools, Lowther is often met with scepticism from people who attribute her success to her social media clout than talent.
“People are always going to be a little bit apprehensive about [social media],” Lowther says. Strangers have often formed an opinion of her before they’ve even met. “Often when I meet them, they’ll be like: ‘You know what? You’re actually quite nice,’” she laughs.
It is true that in person, Lowther is different from the version seen online. On TikTok, she’s all jazz hands and musical theatre fizz. Today, she is more reserved: still warm and funny, but with a vulnerability that doesn’t always make it into the frame. Lowther tells me about how she turned her phone off for a week after a video surfaced of her making a mistake during an early performance of Six. “My first thought was: I’m going to get ripped to shreds online, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Because of her trajectory, Lowther faces a far greater level of scrutiny than most performers. Dealing with online criticism has become a part of her life. Underneath her videos, she often finds “nasty comments” about her voice, career and, most prominently, suggestions that she’s used social media to cheat her way to success. “I’ve tried to teach myself to rise above it, and think that is more a reflection of the person than me, but it is easier said than done,” she says. To an extent, the torrent of abuse has begun to feel normal. “I forget that, for lots of people, it is not a daily struggle.”
Perhaps this is why Lowther occasionally doubts herself. “Impostor syndrome is a real thing. This explosion happened so fast, sometimes I do sit there thinking: What am I doing at this audition?” She’s the first to say her road to theatre has been far from normal. The first West End show she was cast in, Heathers, came about because someone she met at a social media event was friends with one of the producers, and got her an audition. “It’s hard when I’m faced with people saying: ‘Why would she get this part?’ I’ve worked hard. I have to stick to my guns and believe I deserve to be in certain spaces.”
Lowther believes more musical theatre hopefuls will turn to social media. In June, it was announced that TikTok star Maddie Grace Jepson, who has 1.9 million followers, will make her West End debut in Back to the Future: The Musical, while Love Island winner Amber Davies (1.2 million followers on Instagram) has since starred in countless shows, including the current run of The Great Gatsby. This is a marked change from the more traditional path actors usually take: many will spend years working their way up through off-West End roles, understudying and attending endless auditions before getting a big break.
Today, casting directors and producers increasingly see a strong online following as part of a performer’s value: their fans, it is assumed, are a ready-made audience. For some, this is a welcome levelling of the playing field that helps regional or working-class performers who lack industry connections. But there are concerns. If you’re expected to perform in an eight-show week, proper training and stamina are essential – and not always something guaranteed by social media popularity.
And this all arguably creates a hierarchy of another kind. Actors have spoken out against being asked about their follower count in the smallest non-speaking roles. In 2019, a casting call for a commercial asked actors to have “more than 5,000 followers on Instagram” went viral, leading to broader criticism in the industry. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie star Hayley Tamaddon said she was asked, at the end of a West End audition, about the number of followers she had on X (the role went to someone with 20,000 more followers).
Despite her time at drama school, it is clear that it’s TikTok that has opened doors for Lowther. She now hosts a theatre podcast, How Very Hannah (the podcast’s own TikTok account has more than 52,800 followers) which is going on a UK tour this autumn. “We play silly games, I give advice to people who send in questions, I chat with guests and try to remove any snootiness around theatre,” she says. That personal audience gives Lowther something many other young actors don’t have: leverage. She doesn’t have to wait to be cast to engage an audience, promote her work or generate income; she has built her own stage. It’s a powerful position.
Does creating a public-facing brand ever get in the way of being taken seriously as a stage actor? “By trade, I am an actress,” she says cautiously, but she reveals that some people in the industry have initially turned up their noses at her influencer life.
Why does Lowther think people are so keen to follow her life? She pauses. “It’s a weird one. As cheesy as it is to say, I try to be as authentic as possible … I try to show the lows, the highs and all the bits in between.” Lowther’s appeal does seem to be rooted in her honesty. She posts videos of her crying after failed auditions, hosts chats from her dressing room, and answers questions about how much actors really get paid. Part of the draw is that she isn’t too flashy or aloof. Her relatability offers other young performers a sense of hope: maybe, if they throw themselves into social media, they could have a career like hers too.
Of course, out of the many people who post on TikTok, only a few will end up in the spotlight. Lowther is more than aware of this, and is determined not to fall behind. She still posts regularly on TikTok and feels a responsibility to make content that’s honest, joyful and rooted in her love of musical theatre. She has big dreams of being in a movie musical – “something like the Wicked movie” – but, ultimately, the theatre has her heart. “I really love being on stage. I feel like it is where I’m meant to be.”
How Very Hannah Live! tours the UK to 29 November; tour starts Edinburgh.
