Unmasking the diva

Giving Sheila Ferguson the third degree is no walk in the park. More like a walk in the jungle, in fact. The 1970s disco diva turned I'm A Celebrity survivor doesn't suffer fools gladly, as witnessed by millions on the Ant and Dec TV bug-fest.

'People call me a diva but what does that mean?' The look tells you the question is rhetorical. 'I just like to put my point across and I put my foot down when I have to. I'm tough to negotiate with because I know what I want.'

Refreshingly unafraid to blow her own trumpet - her cookbook Soul Food is a 'classic', she's proud she's kept her looks and tells you so - it would be easy to be flattened by Ferguson's steamroller ego. But she's got an earthy charm that's gutsier than mere showbiz gloss. After all, she's been there, done that and she's wearing her own T-shirt.

For all her blazing self-confidence, Ferguson's career was stuck in a glitterball 1970s timewarp until reality TV came nibbling. The public perception was 'that woman off the Three Degrees who Prince Charles fancied' and there she was likely to remain. But, scornful of the pop revivals circuit, Ferguson was none too enamoured with the idea of living in her own past. So I'm A Celebrity was part of a masterplan.

'Listen, I knew that as a black woman in her fifties, I was never going to win,' she says. 'Black people don't win those shows. But my idea was that it would open doors to opportunities that would inspire me - and it worked.'

The proof is that we're now sitting in the distinctly un-diva-like dressing room of the Duchess Theatre, where Ferguson is preparing to star in new musical Behind The Iron Mask.

Based on a 17th century true story, not the novel by Dumas, it tells of a man secretly imprisoned by Louis XIV and condemned to wear a mask for the rest of his life. With a cast of just six, it throws a heavy load on the lead trio. And. with a musical style closer to Les Mis than Saturday Night Fever, Ferguson is stretching her vocal talents.

'For me, it's a real departure, it's not Sheila Ferguson playing Sheila Ferguson. As Gypsy I do more acting than I've ever done, so it's been challenging and gruelling.'

Famously barred from taking a vibrator into the jungle as her one permitted luxury, she's relishing creating a Gypsy she describes as wicked and sensual, caught up in a claustrophobic love triangle involving the bemasked
aristocrat and his lowly jailer. She admits she would never have got the part without I'm A Celebrity.

'John Robinson, the show's creator, saw a picture of me in that and saw me in a whole new light, as Gypsy,' she says. 'To me, it's giving a strong presence to black women in the West End. I see myself as a role model to young black women. I come from the Philadelphia ghetto and, if I can do it, they can do it.'

Time's running out, so we rattle through how her mother's nervous breakdown made the six-year-old Sheila want to be a psychologist ('My mum was broken, I thought that was the way I could fix her'), how a high school crush on Marvin Gaye turned into a dream meeting at New York's Apollo Theater and how I'm A Celebrity brought her some surprising fans: 'I got lascivious requests from men, one was only 18, who desperately wanted me to beat them up. And 28's my limit, usually!'

Add a stormy relationship with her ex-manager, the bitter break-up of The Three Degrees and her headline-making dirty dancing with Prince Charles and her life is a biopic waiting to happen. She's just waiting for time in her schedule to write the script.