My dad always told me that perseverance furthers. He was right.

I have been extremely pleased to support the Trust's work in the Lupus Unit ever since. Personal experience also motivated me to become involved to help raise the awareness of the disease and hopefully thereby improve the speed of diagnosis.

I never enjoyed being famous.

But you know, I'm not 25 anymore, and I have always said musical theater in particular is a young person's game. It requires energy, mentally and physically, to do it.

One was never taught how to begin at drama school. But all it required was one intake of breath.

If you are in a play, and you catch a cold, you are able to muddle through. If you are carrying a musical, it's a different thing altogether. It's the great fear of any singer's life.

Oh, it was awful, and I vowed to myself I would never, ever push myself to the edge that much again. It was really frightening. Because absolutely everything seemed to be impossible to deal with, just little things became major - noise, if someone had a radio on, or even the sound of traffic, or being in someone's company for longer than 10 minutes - I started to find it all too much.