Michael Ball

“You often take the mick out of the people you like best.”

“I have my family life and I think it's important to be able to shut the door and keep the door shut, and that keeps you grounded. You stay in reality.”

“Bacharach has such a brilliant ear for melody and his music has a completely timeless feel to it; I thought it would be great to do a whole album of his music and to record with a full orchestra and big band which is something I hadn't done before.”

“Anyone who's suffered from panic attacks knows how frightening they are.”

“The one I really get on with is Princess Anne. Talk about calls a spade a shovel! And she's so clued-up. She's a patron of a number of charities. I've been involved in a couple and she's not just a name. She knows the research programmes that are going on. She really does her homework.”

“Well, I try not to let people down in the work that I do or in how I conduct myself.”

“Try to leave people feeling better for having met you.”

“People will assume what a record is going to be like and they are loath to even give it a listen.”

“I have a family who are desperately not interested in sharing their life with the world.”

“I spent my 40th birthday on the stage of the Palladium in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.'”

“I play roles, but when I'm off stage, I always try to be myself.”

“I'm a fairly traditional British cook, as my partner Cathy doesn't enjoy spicy food, although I like to experiment myself.”

“Tapping therapy is absolutely brilliant. Stephen Gately from Boyzone, God rest his soul, told me about it. It's just a little tap that focuses the mind away from that wave of panic and adrenalin that shoots into your body.”

“There are certain fans who come to everything I do.”

“I love the genre of early Hollywood. It gives you everything.”

“I'm really superstitious.”

“As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.”

“I don't think you last very well in this business if you're trendy because trends come and go.”

“I have far ascended beyond every ambition my 16-year-old self ever had.”

“That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.”