Our Claire to face Roxie music

Claire Sweeney, Brookside veteran and the winner of Rear of The Year, has tried on her fishnets and slipped on her stilettos for the first time as she prepares for her West End debut in Chicago in December. The 30-year-old will take on the role with which Denise Van Outen recently had so much success: Roxie Hart.

Anna Louise Combe, who is currently playing Roxie, will leave the company at the beginning of December to make way for Sweeney for a 15-week run until the middle of next March.

Sweeney told the Evening Standard: "It's been my dream and ambition to do a West End show - and I reckon Chicago is the best show in town. I'm so passionate and the music and everything about the show, it's wonderful. I've seen it about eight times and I never get tired of it.

"When I was younger I was part of a youth theatre in Southport and the older group did Chicago and I auditioned for it, I wanted to be Roxie. But I didn't get it. I lost out to one of the other girls. You know, the people who have been in the company the most, and whose mums made the sandwiches always got the best parts."

Last week, Sweeney quit her day job - playing Lindsey Corkhill in Brookside - but she will continue to be seen in the soap until Christmas.

She said: "At the beginning of the year I was 30 and I was single and I thought, 'in a few years I could be settled down and married with kids, what I want to do is a West End musical'. I sat down with Phil Redmond and he gave me his blessing to leave."

The producers of Chicago first became aware of Sweeney as a potential cast member for the show at the Adelphi when she won last year's Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes with an eye-watering impersonation of Celine Dion.

That powerful singing voice had been whipped into shape first at the Italia Conti stage school and then during a four-year stint belting out standards on P&O cruise liners.

However, she will have her work cut out to match the booming tones of Eighties pop icon Alison Moyet who has decided to extend her own Chicago contract as Matron "Mama" Morton for an extra four months.

"Alison Moyet has got an amazing voice," Sweeney said. "I've been a fan for years. Of course it will be daunting singing on the same stage. I used to watch her on Top of the Pops as a kid."