Michael lets his hair down as hostess with the least-ess

Yes, the clever ones out there will have already worked out that Mr Ball, who has played red-blooded leading men in shows such as Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera, is now a leading lady.

He has won the part of housewife Edna Turnblad, hostess without the mostess, in the musical Hairspray, which begins performances at the Shaftesbury Theatre on October 11.

Michael told me that for the first time in a long time he actually auditioned for a part. "It was a proper audition to get the gig," he recalls.

Hairspray is based on the John Waters film which starred drag artiste Divine as the mother of a teenage girl who tried to change race laws in Baltimore in 1962.

It then opened in New York, as a totally engrossing musical, five years ago. I had so much fun when I saw it that I caught back-to-back shows.

And John Travolta stars as Edna in a new movie version that opens here on July 20. Michael says: "The secret is to play Edna as a woman and not as a man in drag.

"You behave like a woman and you convince people and find the pathos, the way Dustin Hoffman did in Tootsie.

"It's a show that's fun and it confronts issues," says Michael - although an important issue for him is whether to wear a Diana Dors-style blonde wig, or go darker.

Director Jack O'Brien, who won a Tony award on Broadway last weekend for staging Coast Of Utopia, has cast newcomer Leanne Jones as Edna's larger-than-life daughter Tracy.

All the American creative team will work on the London production, which has an official first night on October 30.