Hair apparent

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10 April 2012

On Tuesday night, a new star was born. Twenty-two-year-old Leanne Jones, a complete unknown, stole the opening night of the new musical, Hairspray. There was a huge hype surrounding the show, which has already taken £5 million in advance ticket sales. It has the potential to be 2007's major cash cow. Veteran of the West End Michael Ball stars; Mel Smith is making his first appearance on stage in years. But all eyes were on the actress playing Tracy Turnblad - the larger-than-life teenager who battles racial segregation on an American TV show.

Could she deliver? When the decision was first taken to transfer the Tony-award-winning show, the director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell desperately wanted a British actress to play Tracy but feared they might have to bring someone over from America.

Jones fought her way through 13 auditions to land one of the most coveted West End roles of the year - even though she only graduated from drama school last year, and had never appeared on the professional stage before. Six months ago she was working in telesales at the Moorgate branch of the Halifax.

This week she triumphed against the odds. Not only is Jones a major new talent, critics agree, she's a great plus-size role model for young women - the theatre world's equivalent of Beth Ditto.

In fact, Jones was such an ingénue that Ball had to teach her how to bow at the curtain call. "Both he and Mel have really looked after me," she says. "They told my dad they were going to adopt me." As a first-night present, Ball sent her to a swish hairdresser's for a manicure and pedicure. And she had a special dress made by the show's costume designer. "I wanted something really fitted and I couldn't find a fashion designer who specialises in plus-sizes," she says meaningfully.

Like Tracy in the musical, Jones oozes sex appeal. She says she has a few more insecurities than Tracy - jibes about her weight when she was younger did hurt - but today she's "very confident, and very happy with the way that I look. I think it's better to embrace it, I always have since I was about 15. I was like 'Yeah, I quite like it.'"

Hairspray started as a 1988 film, directed by John Waters, about a working-class American girl determined to become a star. Refreshingly it isn't a Cinderella weight-loss story - Tracy doesn't have to be made over to win her dream boy. In fact, her weight isn't the most important thing about her. But it is arguably the most testing role in the West End, because the lead actress sings, dances and is on stage in almost every scene. Jones reveals she has lost four-and-a-half stone.

"A few months ago I couldn't even walk up the stairs of the Tube without being out of breath, which really scared me. Now I might do a charity race next year."

Jones looks voluptuous but toned on stage. This is no cartoon female body. "I like being curvy." Her white trash costumes aren't entirely flattering, however. "They cut my skirt under my bum cheeks, which I like, but it's also cut under my stomach, so it juts out. My tummy is the thing I feel insecure about."

Growing up in Cambridge, she always wanted to be a star. But when she was 11 she was given the video of Les Mis starring one Michael Ball. From that moment she was determined to become an actor - it's a mark of her self-belief that she never changed her figure.

Age 18 at drama school, the head of dance took her aside. "She showed me two options," Jones recalls. "She said: 'We can help you lose weight and become a leading lady, or we can encourage you to be individual and play the character roles. But you might not work for five or 10 years.' I thought for a minute, then I decided right, yeah, this is how I want to be. I got to play Aunt Ella in Oklahoma and a gangster in Kiss Me Kate - all the funny parts that my friends remembered and talked about."

As for her "overnight success", she waited two years for the role in Hairspray. Back in 2005 - when she was still in her second year at Mountview theatre school - her friends told her about the open auditions. To her amazement she got down to the last three, then the production was postponed. She went back to her studies, then a year later was called to audition for the Hollywood film starring John Travolta. The role went to American actress Nikki Blonsky.

She graduated from theatre school and was struggling for a break. She worked in a jewellery shop at Liverpool Street Station, taught drama in a secondary school and, finally, joined the Halifax. But then rumours broke that the London version was back on. "I thought: 'I'm going to carry on with my life and not get too excited.'" In May, she went for an audition with Jack O'Brien, the show's American director and a Broadway veteran. Minutes into the song Good Morning Baltimore, she had moved the director "to tears".

Jones loves the show's message that it's OK to be different. "I think everyone can relate to it: black, white, gay, straight, tall, short, fat, thin. Everyone has had that time in their life where they don't fit in. Tracy says: 'I don't care who you think I am. Don't stand in my way, because you won't stop me.'"

In the show she gets a proper love interest. "And he's a handsome, gorgeous love interest," she adds proudly. "I've never had that on stage before. The fact that he sees Tracy as big but beautiful melts my heart and makes me so happy. I believe it. My boyfriend's 6ft 1in, slim and beautiful. I sound like I'm trying to say fat people should just go out with fat people," she frets, "but that's not what I mean." Beth Ditto is her personal heroine. "She was on Jonathan Ross with Michael Ball and apparently told him, 'She stole my part! I want to play Tracy Turnblad.' I think she's so sexy and fantastic."

Around Jones's dressing-room mirror there are family photos - of her father and stepmother, her boyfriend and younger brother, 18, who's also going to act, and her mother, Valerie. Leanne has dedicated Hairspray to Valerie, who died seven years ago when Leanne was 15. She lived with breast cancer for 10 years before it returned to her lymph glands, then finally her bones. "She was so strong, such an inspiration to me," she says softly. "I imagined she was there for the first preview. I think she was."

Quite soon after her mother died, Mags came into her father's life. "She's gorgeous, I love her. She's made my dad so happy, she helped him talk through things and took a lot of stress off my shoulders because I was only 15, and I needed to help my brother. I had someone to take me bra shopping and talk to me about boys. She persuaded my dad to let me go to discos. He brought me up so well, I'm a sensible girl. I was never going to do anything crazy." Jones met her own boyfriend, Lewis, when she was 16. Today they share a flat near Alexandra Palace. She likes the fact that he's not in the business and keeps her grounded. "He waits up for me after every show, so we do get a chat, which is nice." In fact, after subbing her for meals and clothes for years, it's lovely to treat him. "I kitted him out with an outfit for the opening night party."

Jones is signed up to Hairspray for a year, but she's realistic about her future career prospects. "Are there any other roles?" she laughs. It can be tough being the poster girl for size-16 girls (just ask Sophie Dahl). And few casting directors have snapped up actress Alison Garland, who was so heart-breaking in Mike Leigh's All or Nothing.

She's enjoyed getting fit so much she might just keep on going. "I used to accept I was fat. I'd think: 'This is the way I am, I can't change it.' But now I've seen I can. And it was easy, so easy. Obviously I had a lot of time to do it and I had this amazing motivation. But now I think I can do anything. I could lose that weight and play the thin leading lady. I'm not saying right now that's what I'm going to do," she adds firmly. "I'm just saying anything's possible."

Hairspray is at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Box office: 020 7379 5399.

Hair apparent

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