Byline: Marti Pellow

IT'S a sleazy role that's been played by stars including Jerry Springer, Richard Gere ... and Jimmy Osmond.

Now Marti Pellow is back in the shiny shoes of dubious, slick-talking lawyer Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago heading to Newcastle next month.

Having recently turned on the dark charm as devilish Daryl Van Horne in Witches of Eastwick, the singer-songwriter slips right back into a role he first played in 2002.

"What are you saying about me?" he laughs, adding "the ladies like a bad boy don't they?" When I tell him the famously clean-cut Jimmy Osmond reckoned there was a nice side to the role he played last year when Chicago came to the Sunderland Empire, Pellow is a bit nonplussed.

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He thinks Osmond a bit of a strange choice, suggesting: "He's probably most suited to Amos" (the husband of female lead Roxie Hart who finds herself in need of Flynn's legal expertise when she's accused of murder).

"Billy is a nasty piece of work. "Don't bother opening the door, I'll just slither underneath."

The Glasgow-born singer has now clocked up a fair few musical theatre roles, impressing with his versatility. Not every former pop star would be able to act. But Marti, who led Wet Wet to pop chart-topping glory in the eighties - remember how Love Is All Around rocked the charts in 1994 and refused to budge for 15 weeks - now has a CV encompassing an impressive range of music.

And he keeps it all going: he has a solo album out next year and still on occasion fronts Wet Wet Wet.

He reckons musical theatre is not much of a departure for him.

He has eclectic music tastes and, if he likes a score, he'll go for it. As for the acting, he says it's listening and reacting that are important.

In Witches of Eastwick, he carried off an American accent. He spends a lot of time in the US after all and, before our interview, had just returned from the country.

This time, Billy is "a greasy Irish lawyer, and I'm Scottish," he points out, "but I suppose it's all Celtic."

How you interpret a role can vary, of course, and cast changes can alter the dynamics again.

This time, Marti will play opposite Emma Barton, who was Honey Mitchell in Eastenders and co-starred last year with Osmond.

"Everyone tells me she's a cracking actress," he says.

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Knowing the role of old, he doesn't intend to set aside much rehearsal time before the tour starts: "I'll just slide back in - or at least that's the idea."

Featuring hit songs such as All That Jazz and Razzle Dazzle, it's a sassy, sexy musical based on the real-life story of nightclub singer Roxie who shot her lover back in the roaring 1920s.

As Billy Flynn, who helps keep Roxie and fellow jail-bird and double-murderess Velma Kelly off Death Row, Pellow appeared first time around in the West End, Broadway, even Japan. "We were all over the world," he says. "And you know the one place we haven't been: Newcastle."

Over the years, he's been a regular visitor to the North East. Just last year he was at Sunderland Empire in Witches, and brought a jazz-infused solo show the previous year to The Sage Gateshead.

He likens Newcastle to Glasgow. Cities with rivers running through them, he thinks, share similar
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