Bridget sings Roxie music

She is famous for playing the podgy publishing assistant Bridget Jones who thought she'd never bag a man. Now Texan beauty Renee Zellweger is, quite literally, playing a man-killer. The Hollywood chameleon has transformed herself into the seductive murderess Roxie Hart in the multi-milliondollar film of smash-hit musical Chicago.

As these early pictures from the set show, 33-year-old Zellweger has shed the pounds put on to play Bridget. Some Hollywood observers are now saying Zellweger has gone too far the other way. Merle Ginsberg, a "celebrity style guru", said: "She should scale back on the dieting and regain some of her womanly curves."

Whatever the critics say, the Oscar-nominated actress looks in fine fettle in these pictures.

Zellweger's character Roxie is a heartless harridan jailed for slaying her lover when he had the gall to try to leave her.

The jealous murderess is also desperate to hit the big time as a singer, just as desperate as her fellow inmate Velma Kelly, who is played by Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The rivals both hope manipulative lawyer Billy Flynn, played by Richard Gere, will help them beat the rap and make headlines for their singing, rather than their homicidal tendencies. Our pictures make a compelling case for Zellweger's suitability for the role - at least when it comes to looking good as Roxie. But can she sing?

Considering that her rendition of the ballad All By Myself at the beginning of Bridget Jones's Diary was a danger to sensitive eardrums the signs don't seem good - but Richard Gere reckons Renee sings as well as Billie Holiday.

"Renee is outstanding," says Gere, 52.

"She was doing this number a couple of days ago and she had us in tears. It was so powerful, she was singing just like Billie. It was unbelievable."

Before shooting began the cast of Chicago had intense training to bring them as close as possible to the singing standards of Chicago's stage stars.

Gere admits that adapting to the rigours faced by musical actors has been a difficult transition. He says: "We've actually got to be able to do this stuff, so we've all had vocal coaches who have been training us to do a Broadway voice.

"I used to sing in rock bands and that's a different kind of voice that I had evolved. So to learn to sing on stage in a big operatic voice is difficult."

Denise is back in the West End