I'm hooked on musicals..Im writing one now with Gary Barlow

WITH starring roles in The Wizard of Oz and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it is clear comic Jason Manford loves a musical. But now he is going one better by writing his own - and he has enlisted some help with composing the tunes.

- MARK JEFFERIES

On his musical plans, Jason says: "I'm writing one at the moment, we've just been putting that together sort of the last year or so with Gary Barlow.

"We're writing a musical about Captain Hook. I played him in panto one year and I thought 'I like this guy', you know, he's a good character.

"Why has nobody done an origin story? So yeah, me and Gary had been writing a couple of other projects, and we both just really like this one. So it just came up and we thought, why not?

"I don't know if I will take the lead, but part of me is hoping to just be the writer and, you know, so it can just be on, and I can be at home.

"But we are just writing that now, with another guy called Joe Stilgoe who's a brilliant pianist and lyricist... and just seeing that, seeing where that goes."

Jason, 43, says his love of musicals began at an early age when a primary school teacher took his class to see an amateur performance of Sweeney Todd. He says: "She obviously didn't know what it was about.

About 20 minutes in, she was like, I have messed up here, but yeah it was great.

"At school I was an orphan in Annie, an orphan in Oliver, I was an orphan in a lot of other musicals.

"I used to go to watch a lot of standup and a lot of musicals.

"And then getting the chance to do it professionally, it's been wonderful." All of which makes Jason an ideal choice to front The National Lottery's Big Night of Musicals, an epic musical spectacular, which airs on BBC1 tonight.