Maybe it was the fact that the theatre didn't seem to be expecting me or the fact that I was introduced as "Kathleen who does the Internet" - but somehow when I sat down in Sam Kane's dressing room I had the feeling that things were not going to go well.

Maybe it would have helped if I'd seen the musical Carousel before blindly questioning the star about Wayne Sleep's choreography (when his character Billy Bigelow doesn't dance) and singing the Liverpool anthem You'll Never Walk Alone (which the Everton supporter clearly doesn't sing as his character is very dead at the time).

There's impetuousness and domestic violence going on in the show - and it's a lot darker than everyone remembers it.

Sam Kane on Carousel

Maybe it was also the fact that I was acutely aware that my BBC Three Counties Radio colleague Justin Dealey had warned Sam that I was "stalking him" and "could do him serious damage".

Halfway through the interview I realised the jolly musical I had envisaged in my mind that I was going to see at The Orchard Theatre in Dartford was not Carousel - I was thinking of Barnum.

Holes, digging, foot in mouth - I felt like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill when he interviews Julia Roberts about her latest space epic movie - for Horse and Hounds.

So a combination of these factors contrived to fluster me and instead of taking advantage of my 15 minutes of one-to-one, I kept my head down, ploughed through the questions and was out of his dressing room before you could say Linda Lusardi.

Maybe he was bemused by the whole experience but the 35-year-old actor - who played Peter Phelan in Brookside and Sarah's internet pervert in Coronation Street - kept his professionalism and answered the quick-fire questions with aplomb.

Sam Kane as Billy Bigelow sings If I Loved You to Jane Mark (Julie Jordan)

Sam's back on the road with Carousel after spending Christmas in the panto Snow White in Bromley, Kent, opposite his wife, former Page Three model, Linda Lusardi. Was it difficult for him to chop and change from the light-hearted to the darker Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers?

"It's not that hard at all," he told me. "You just switch off from one then learn the script of the other. The difficulty is to maintain what was there before so you just trap that in a part of your brain and then get back to it - but it seemed to work quite well, a lot better than I expected it to."

Carousel is going on a cross-country tour until it finishes at the end of May - including a week at Milton Keynes starting on Monday 23 February.

"The show's going down well - it's a good show and everyone that sees it just loves it," he enthused. "People are watching their purses a bit after Christmas so the bookings haven't been fantastic but it's picking up nicely now as we go towards Easter."

I couldn't be James Bond as you have to be ridiculously good looking and I don't have those attributes unfortunately.

Sam Kane

Sam said Carousel was Rodgers and Hammerstein's favourite musical and the brooding story was not easy to summarise: "It's a love story with all the true grittiness in there as well. There's a lot of redemption issues as Billy is not the nicest person in the world. There's impetuousness and domestic violence going on in the show - and it's a lot darker than everyone remembers it."

Sam had previously been in the show as the villain Jigger Craigin, while Darren Day played Billy Bigelow. Which of the two roles did Sam prefer?

"I suppose Billy is a bigger role and the lead of the show but they're both great roles. Jig is much more two dimensional and is nasty to the bone. Billy is not the nicest person in the world but he has got a conscience."

Sam Kane as loveable rogue Roddy in Boogie Nights with Sophie Lawrence

Having played Adam Pontipee in Seven Brides, then the loveable rogue Roddy in Boogie Nights and with the Billy Bigelow and Jig roles - is Sam in danger of being type cast?

"Most leading men in musicals are like that - apparently all women love a good guy with a nasty streak in them and I think that the attraction which makes the musicals work so well.

"The men are always going to break the girls' hearts but everything will be OK by the end."

He said that of all the major theatrical roles he'd played he found Billy Bigelow the most challenging: "This role is good as it shows off more of my acting ability. Boogie Nights was a lot of singing and dancing with a vein of a storyline running through it. Seven Brides was more slapstick and not as intense as Rodgers and Hammerstein."

All the musicals have very different singing roles - from disco through fast-paced chorus number to long solos. "I love the song Bless This Beautiful Hide in Seven Brides but the soliloquy - people will know it as My Boy Bill - in Carousel is about eight minutes long and it's a great song. I think that's my favourite."

Sam Kane as Prince Michael in panto

While on tour, Sam tries to get home to Linda and his two children in south Hertfordshire whenever possible, but life on the road is part and parcel of the job.

He met his wife while playing opposite her in panto - and the tradition continues with plans afoot for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Woking, Surrey, this Christmas.

After Carousel ends, Sam says he would like to take a break from musical theatre to free up his schedule for television work - and his dream job would be opposite one of the world's most well-known characters.

"I'd love to be a Bond baddie. I'd love to get into movies. I couldn't be James Bond as you have to be ridiculously good looking and I don't have those attributes unfortunately," he said modestly.

Sam said he had been hooked on watching I'm A Celebrity and correctly predicted Kerry McFadden would win but wasn't sure if either he or his wife would be up for entering the jungle challenge: "Although it'd be great to have a laugh and make some money for charity you have to think whether it'd be credible for your acting career."

Now at Christmas, we had a competition to win train and theatre tickets to see a London show - and the winner we picked was called Sam Kane and lived in south Hertfordshire.

Sam Kane - the actor

But Sam Kane looked completely bemused when I asked him about entering competitions on our site and seeing Tell Me On A Sunday. Feeling the victim of some grand wind-up, I decided to make a quick and professional exit to get a stiff drink.

A couple of phone calls and further investigation reveals that a Sam Kane did win a competition on our web site - but not the actor Sam Kane - although confusingly the winner told my colleague that his panto schedule was going well….

So now it appears there are two Sam Kanes. How's a girl supposed to stalk someone properly if there's already somebody impersonating him? It's a dilemma. I guess the restraining orders will arrive shortly - from both Sam Kanes.

Read our Carousel review

Grantham gets hooked!