As pop icon Chesney Hawkes prepares to leave Hanley the city awaits the arrival of another 1980s star. Tamzin Hindmarch talks to Jason Donovan about his new album Let It Be Me

THEY were once the teenage sweethearts in Neighbours and the Prince and Princess of Pop – then, they went their separate ways.

While Kylie went on to acquire iconic status for her music, Jason saw musicals as the way forward and landed West End roles such as Joseph in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

However, having recently returned to our television screens in the Cornwall-set seaside drama Echo Beach, the former Neighbours star is hoping his new album of 1950s and 1960s covers and self-penned tracks will breath new life into his singing career too.

Having left Ramsay Street 22 years ago and enjoyed chart success with Too Many Broken Hearts and Especially For You, he can't wait to get back on the road.

"For years I felt I wasn't cool enough," says Jason, now aged 40, "and that whatever I was involved in didn't deserve respect.

"But ultimately it takes something like becoming a father to make you realise there is no such thing as being cool. It's just about being yourself. Respect comes with age and I celebrate my place in the 1980s."

Now on tour with his new album, which went in at number 28 in the charts, he adds: "I'm really proud of what we've come up with for this record.

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"I think it's very rich and my favourite songs on it are Love Letters and the title track. Love Letters is a fantastic song. It has been recorded over the years by various people, and its roots are very simple but at the same time very melodic. I particularly like Let It Be Me, because my voice sits in it very well and the strings in it are strong."

The tracklist for Let It Be Me includes old favourites such as Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Be My Baby, Blue Velvet and Love Hurts, as well as Nobody But Me, which he has co-written with some help from Brian Eno, and Dreamboats And Petticoats, which features Hank Marvin on guitar.

"The Eno connection was quite peripheral in that he is a next door neighbour of mine in London and he gave me a few chords and suggested some structures," he explains.

"He keeps himself very much to himself, but what an incredible mind he has. He's not just a music collaborator, he's a futurist."

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In August, Jason played live at Queens Park in Crewe for free to raise money for Caudwell Children. No stranger to Hanley either, having appeared at The Regent Theatre two years ago in Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, he says: "I'm definitely looking forward to returning to Stoke-on-Trent.

"It was a bit wet on the day in Crewe, but the spirit of the crowd was good and they rose to the challenge."

Jason Donovan appears at The Victoria Hall in Hanley on Tuesday, December 16, at 7.30pm. Call 0870 060 6649.