Justin Lee Collins does Chicago

TV entertainer Justin Lee Collins hits the West End of London on Thursday playing Amos Hart in Chicago for three shows. It's all being filmed for his new Sky1 show, Justin Collins Is… where he'll also learn ballroom dancing and pro-wrestling.

How is your part in Chicago going?

It's going really well. It's hard work. It's ever so hard, because there are so many elements to it. There's obviously the singing and choreography and dancing. After acting that's really hard. That's probably the element that I'm finding most tricky at the moment, the acting, the dialogue, the scenes. The singing's not too bad although it's not the easiest song in the world to sing. And right at the end there's a massive note, there's a huge note.

I'm playing Amos Hart in Chicago, Roxy's husband. He sings a song called Mr Cellophane. He has one number to sing. It's not the most famous song in the show. There's All That Jazz and Razzle Dazzle. But it's possibly the biggest song in the show and right at the end of the number there's a huge note that you have to hit and it's intimidating.

Are you a natural dancer and singer?

Dancer, no. Singer, yeah. I can sing a bit. But of course this is very different. This isn't karaoke singing or pop singing, which is what I do. I sing in the shower and I go to a karaoke box and I sing Tom Jones or Elvis or Alison Moyet. But this is musical theatre. This is something entirely different. Before this experience I'd never had a singing lesson in my entire life.

So all that business is new to me. Vocal exercises, getting your voice warmed up. And the fact that if you're singing correctly you should be able to sing even if your throat's groggy or sore, because it's not coming from your throat if you're singing properly. If you're singing properly it should be down in something called the diaphragm.

Is it making everything a bit more intense having all this filmed?

Every now and again, if you really get into it, if you really feel it's working and you're connected to what you're doing, then you almost forget the fact you're being filmed. And that's great, that's the place that I should be in. And this thing is so intensive and it's so involved and it's very hard, that you kind of forget the fact that there's a camera on you, which is good. That means that I'm not conscious of it, so therefore I'm not playing up to it.

You seem to be very successful at multi-tasking. Everything you try out for TV you accomplish, don't you?

We've made several films now and taken on different challenges. I did magic and that kind of worked out alright in the end. Of course, I was a Tom Jones impersonator at a convention in America for Celebrity Impersonators. That was probably the most successful one we've done so far in terms of the results. We made a film about ventriloquism and I couldn't get to get to grips with that at all, I couldn't grasp that at all. Darts, of course. I practised darts for about four or five hours a day every day for about five or six days a week and I did that for months and then I still wasn't any good at the end.

Is this the first one from the Sky1 series you've done?

This is the first one. And ballroom dancing. But we're not really focused on those at the moment, it's sort of one thing at a time really because these things are so immersive. West End show and then we'll think about the others. But ballroom dancing we're not going to do until after Christmas, which is good because that's just too much. I need to focus on the job at hand.

You're obviously a fan of that because you used to present the behind the scenes show on Strictly Come Dancing. Is that right?

I did the first series of Strictly Come Dancing. I was a fan before that. If you asked my mum what my favourite TV show was when I was a little boy she'd say it was Come Dancing. And I don't know why. I really don't know why. So I've always loved it and now I'm going to get the opportunity to take part in an event.

But it'll be very different to Strictly Come Dancing because, of course, that's very much a celebrity reality show, celebs in jeopardy and all that and I love it. But this will be about the world of ballroom dancing and what it's like to be a part of that world. And I'm going to find a partner. Hopefully there's someone out there who'll be prepared to partner me.

Are you doing a Christmas special for The Friday Night Project?

We are. Not only that, we're going to start recording for the new series which is in January. We've got a couple of those coming up. The Christmas special is with the lovely Simon Pegg.

Justin Lee Collins was talking to Newsbeat entertainment reporter Sarah Jane Griffiths.

Listen to Justin on The Chris Moyles Show

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