Barrymore faces the music

The insiduous allure of drink and drugs has cast the darkest of shadows over Michael Barrymore.

Since 21-year-old Stuart Lubbock was found dead after a drink and drug-fuelled party at Barrymore's Essex home he has found himself unemployable in television and vilified by the press. Now he is to start his British comeback - and risk the vitriol of his many critics - by facing an audience night after night for seven weeks at Wyndhams Theatre in the West End.

In his only interview about his return to public life, the 51-year-old told the Evening Standard: "I have been clean and sober now for two years and two months. But it has been said that I have an addiction, an addiction to an audience. And I suppose I do, because to be quite honest I don't know anything else."

Barrymore knows he can expect hecklers. Whether they taunt him about the death of Mr Lubbock, his long-disguised homosexuality, or anything else, Barrymore says he will face it full on. "I'm not worried about hecklers. I will deal with that when and if it happens - and I will deal with it appropriately," he said.

"I'm not going into the Wyndhams with any preconceived ideas about what may or may not happen. I cannot be on my guard - it would restrict the performance.

"There are some that are going to be swayed by everything that's gone on - and maybe need to be convinced that I am well and mean well. I have to do what I have to do."

He is planning to air a few of his own opinions too. "I'm not going to shy off making comments about what I consider to have been in the realm of fantasy rather than fact," he said.

Clearly bitter about the way he was dropped by Granada television, Barrymore added: "I am certainly not going to let off the hook certain people in TV companies who were very quick to send me off to a rehab. I made a comment once that I would love to have thanked them for sorting my life out.

But since nobody has phoned me for the last two years, I can't."

One very painful subject, however, will not be mentioned during Barrymore's performances - Mr Lubbock's death two years ago. "I wouldn't make light of anything to do with the tragedy," he said. "There is no way I am going down that road."

The entertainer, who was watched by millions when he presented shows such as Strike It Lucky and My Kind Of Music, says he may never work in TV again. He has been offered a film role and will begin work on the project in the new year. First, though, comes his live comeback in the UK, which begins on 15 September. He said: "This is very significant for me. If the door is closed for me on television then that is fine. I'll go on a stage, live, and if an audience wants to see me they will."

He has already performed this year, in Australia and New Zealand. After the first show of the tour, he said that "my whole body was tingling. I had to come down naturally rather than trying to continue it. Australia and New Zealand is the best I've worked".

Being sober, says Barrymore, has been an asset to his work: "I've got myself well and my head is together. I've got much more involved in the performance than before I was sober. When you're not you just let things go. You rely on what was God-given to you rather than really using it."

He added: "No buzz - and God knows I've been down many roads - no buzz in the world can replace the adrenaline rush of being up there and performing. It is amazing and that is enough. But I have had to learn that it is enough."

Barrymore would not give away much about his new material, but he will be performing with guest Suzanne Prentice and a band - and in one routine he wears a pink leotard. "But not leg-warmers," he said. "That would be ridiculous."