Jason Donovan brings Frank-N-Furter back to life

He’s the same performer but how does Jason feel about tackling the role over 25 years later? “I don’t feel uncomfortable, playing Frank at 56 – and, of course, I have personal reasons for being grateful to the show.”

The stage manager on that late 90s touring production was a young woman called Angela Malloch. “I’d be backstage waiting to go on,” recalls Jason, “and I’d get chatting to Ange.” The blossoming friendship turned into romance but the relationship hit the buffers.

Shortly afterwards, Angela found out she was pregnant. It was ultimatum time. “If the relationship had any chance of working, she told me, and if I was going to have any involvement in the life of our child, I would have to give up the self-indulgent hedonistic lifestyle of the 90s and take greater control of my life.  And I did.”

It’s something that happened gradually rather than immediately. “You either seize your opportunities or you don’t”.  But, in the end, he says, you’ve got to want to change. “Elton John said it and it’s true: nobody can do it for you.”

It was a major turning point in his life and the beginning of a relationship – the couple finally married in 2008 – that has stood him in good stead from that day to this. The couple have three children: Jemma is 25 and an actress, 24-year-old Zac is a TV producer in Australia, and Molly, 14, is still at school.

In the meantime, their father has graduated from small-screen fame as Scott in the long-running Australian soap, Neighbours, to chart-topping pop stardom and now, among much else, as a stalwart of musical and straight theatre in a diverse number of productions.

He played Joseph in the original production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (returning as Pharaoh in the 2019 revival and subsequently on tour). He was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts, and has had two stabs at playing drag artist Mitzi in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He also played music mogul Sam Phillips in Million Dollar Quartet, the demon barber of Fleet Street himself in Sweeney Todd and Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech.

All right but what about the wear and tear on his back? He laughs. “I spend a lot more time in physio these days, something I’ve put in as an appendix in my contract!  I’m in my mid-50s. I’m aware of having to look after myself.”

With regular exercise? “Yes, but not obsessively so. Mental health and physical fitness go hand-in-hand for me. This life is a long journey, you hope. My dad gave me the tool of a good work ethic linked to physical activity.

“I don’t go to the gym: I’m not interested in lifting weights.  But I swim. I ride my bike. I stretch. I steam.  I do those things more or less on a daily basis. In fact, they’ve become a borderline addiction. And, of course, doing the show is a work-out in itself: I put a lot of energy into my performance.”

He’s also sensible about his eating regime. “Within reason but then I’m lucky. I seem to burn a lot of fat naturally. Trouble is, you get to my age and you’re in sniper’s alley: increasingly, you’re dodging a lot of bullets. There’s a bit of arthritis here, deteriorating eyesight there. If I take off my glasses, I can’t see whether the bottle contains shampoo or conditioner!” he laughs.

“Although my vocals were never my strongest point back in the day, since Joseph, I have worked really hard and through 30 years of strengthening my vocal cords – they’re a muscle like anything else – I’ve become a better singer. Rocky now plays to my strengths, less musical theatre, more edgy, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.  More me really!”

Touring at any age is demanding and Jason is about to embark on a fairly punishing schedule. As well as Leeds, he’ll be performing in Manchester, Swansea, Wimbledon, Norwich, Nottingham and Dublin.

He makes light of it. “On tour, I wake up a little later; there are no domestic chores to tackle – no trimming the ivy or doing the washing. And I’m a seasoned professional when it comes to locating any M&S or Waitrose.

“I do try and get home at weekends, though, and not agree to more than three or four weeks away at a stretch. But if I want to play Frank – and I do – I’ve got to travel. It comes with the territory.”

What else are you doing? “I’ve got my Doin’ Fine 25 tour – across the UK and Ireland until early April. It’s a greatest hits show, a celebration of 35 years of work.”

Then his focus will be bringing Frank-N-Furter back to life, both for his own satisfaction and that of his inexhaustible audience. “I’ve reached a point of great contentment,” says Jason. “As long as I have my family and my health, as long as I have a good life/work balance, I’m happy. I like to think I work to live, not the other way around.”