SHE has done the gym and is heading through the park to St John’s Wood to find a confectioner’s to undo all the good work.
“I’m going to buy myself chocolate,” laughs Heather Small.
If you didn’t do the chocolate, you wouldn’t have to bother with the gym.
“Yes, but there’d be no fun in that would there?”
She’s keeping in shape for her next jaunt around the UK, this time with Lulu and Anastacia on the returning Here Come The Girls tour.
Heather replaces Chaka Khan, who was the third diva on last year’s tour.
“I saw that show and thought it looked like fun, so when they asked me I jumped at the chance. I met Lulu and she’s a perfectionist. I thought that’s an environment I’d like to work in.”
The show is pitched as a mix of “high-octane, high camp, get-up-and-dance, feet-just-can’t-keep-still songs, against a backdrop of breathtaking glamour and fun, fun, fun!”
More of that girl power nonsense then?
“I don’t know about girl power. I’m of a certain age. I get offended when people call me a girl.”
Reviewers described it as “camp without being kitsch, raunchy without being tacky,” and “tailor made for a girl’s night out.”
Should men stay away?
“Oh no, I wouldn’t say that at all. Don’t try and back me in to a corner,” she laughs.
“I may be a strong, independent female but that doesn’t mean men aren’t allowed. I’d have thought that would be quite attractive but I don’t know what age you are living in, Simon. Does that not attract you?”
It scares me. You might all get overexcited and start stripping the men and covering them in, I don’t know, baked beans.
“No I don’t do that,” she guffaws.
“I get someone to do that for me.”
She adds: “Just because you are strong and independent, doesn’t mean you are scary. To know who you are and what you want, that’s got to be a positive.”
And she wants chocolate.
Has there been squabbles about who headlines the show?
“Oh no, nothing like that. It’s not a competitive environment. It’s more of a sisterhood. We’re on the stage together ninety per cent of the time.”
As well as each’s best known songs, they’ll collaborate on a few choice covers.
The 45-year-old Londoner sold more then ten million records with M People, including the hits Moving On Up, One Night In Heaven and Search For The Hero. She released her first solo album ten years ago. The title track, Proud, became the anthem of the big for Great Britain to host 2012 Olympic Games.
Not being the lead singer for the whole show, sharing the limelight with Lulu and Anastacia, will make a nice change, she reckons.
“Everybody follows you when you’re the lead singer. Even if you take a wrong turn they must follow,” she laughs.
You sound like a nightmare.
“That’s what the band tell me. But they know me so well they can almost preempt a mistake and they help me out of that hole. Nightmare? I might have to find you when I get to Nottingham...”
Gig
What: Here Come The Girls
With: Heather Small, Lulu, Anastacia
Where: Trent FM Arena
When: December 10
Tickets: £35 to £55, 0844 811 0051
Web: www.gigsandtours.com
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