| Jason facts | Jason's half sister, who is also in Neighbours, has just signed a record deal with Universal Music.
It was reported this week that the Queen asked Jason and other expats to the Palace for a briefing before her March trip Down Under. The tune that Jason and Kylie walked down the aisle to was Angry Anderson's 'Suddenly'. It also emerged that Charlene's middle name was Edna. Sweeney Todd is also Cockney rhyming slang for the Flying Squad. 'Get your trousers on, you're nicked!' |
It might seem like a long way from Ramsay Street to Fleet Street, but Jason Donovan is feeling well equipped for the role. He plays the murderous barber in a brand new musical version of the story and says that he’ll calling on his own ‘crazy side’ to build the character. ”I have a pretty crazy side to me. So, you know, I can explore the dark side. I don’t think I’ve ever gone quite as far as slitting someone’s throat, but I do have a mad side to me and I think that I’ve been able to explore that with this piece.” The new show is, he says. ‘the most demanding thing that I have ever done.” ”Not physically so much, but mentally. You are really required to keep on the ball.”
 | | Top of the Pops: 1989 |
Sweeny Todd tells the story of a barber who slashes the throats of his victims and conversts their corpses into meat pies. ”Essentially the story is about revenge and it’s a play within a play set in an asylum. But there are light moments in it, it’s not dark and the music is so beautifully written that you can’t help but fall in love with the various characters.” Jason Donovan began his rise to fame as the clean-cut star of the Australian soap Neighbours, playing Scott Robinson, the boy who loved, wooed and married Kylie Minogue. He attracted thousands of teenage female fans and the day that Scott and Charlene walked down the aisle is still the most requested clip on the BBC’s Neighbours tribute website. Jason went on to record nine UK top 10 hits in the late 1980s and early 90s with singles like ‘Especially For You’ , recorded with Kylie herself, ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’ and the Number One album ‘Ten Good Reasons’.
But the star admitted taking drugs in 1999, saying that he had used cocaine and marijuana. He says he is ‘not particularly proud’ of that turbulent period but sees it as part of a journey. ”You know, no life is flawless. It would be pretty boring if it was. I wouldn’t suggest that there is probably any people on this earth that haven’t had down times and fallen into temptation.” Now 36, Jason Donovan has two children who he describes as the ‘biggest love affair of my life’. He carries recordings of their voices with him wherever he goes. Music, he says, has become ‘more of a hobby’. He is now working on a ‘sort of a recording’ but is ‘realistic’about the chances of it gaining a wider audience. And, in case you wondered, there’s no chance of a return to Neighbours. ”It’s like wearing a pair of old shoes. You’ve worn them and you’ve done it. I have the utmost respect for Neighbours and it’s given me a brilliant life. I’ve sort of moved on, you know? And I figure that is better left where it is.
Sweeney Todd – launches a new UK tour on January 31, 2006, at the Theatre Royal Brighton. Then it'll go on to 11 venues and the West End. | 
