Tim Flavin tells Viv Hardwick that he just loves singing and dancing in the rain, even when the famous deluge is all too realistic.

Raining champ SO just how much precipitation is involved when it comes to Singin’ In The Rain on stage? Tim Flavin, the not so well-known star who became the first US performer to win a Laurence Olivier award, has to see the funny side of performing the splash-along title song of the classical musical.

“There’s just enough to get me through the number,” he jokes, but adds “We have a drainage system. The rain comes down as a kind of curtain but it’s not a thin, sprinkler thing. The water is quite thick and threedimensional.

So I get pretty damn wet. There’s a lot of water falling on that stage and it’s a kind of glorified irrigation system. So far it’s worked really well and we’ve had few problems with it.”

He confesses that dancing with an umbrella and a hat allows him to splash around the stage without running the risk of getting electrocuted.

“With the rain sequence, we do it all again in a slightly bigger way at the end of the show when everybody is involved,” he says.

With Gene Kelly immortalised as the film’s star – and Ernie Wise, with a fair amount of assistance from policeman-playing Eric Morecambe, doing the nation’s favourite spoof version – the UK stage version has been most closely linked to Tommy Steele.

Flavin, who first toured Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Sunderland Empire in 2006, isn’t intimidated by Steele’s portrayal and says: “As far as Tommy is concerned, when he did the Singin’ In The Rain number, all his taps and vocals were dubbed. So I’m not doing anything that resembles what Tommy did. Gene Kelly was dubbed too, but that is the advantage of making a film and quite right too. In fact, I feel that Gene is laughing at me up in hoofer heaven thinking ‘that boy must be crazy down there, to be doing that live eight times a week’. And he’s probably right.”

The man who directed and starred in The Wizard Of Oz in his home town of Brighton over Christmas admits that it took six months of training to get in shape to sing, dance and act for such a big tour, which began life a year before that.

“You just have to kind of start doing it and the show is another work-out in itself. I don’t have to do anything special now, apart from to warm up properly. The warm-up has evolved for me over the years, and all I can say is that there are times when I think I’m old enough to know better,” he jokes.

“We’re actually doing something quite special with this show. We’re bringing as much of the original iconic routine from the film as we can.

Our show is full of real hoofers, real song-and-dancers. No soap opera stars, no reality show contestants.

“We have fully qualified musical theatre singers and dancers. So when we go into a number like Singin’ In The Rain or Good Morning or Moses Supposes, we’re wearing tap shoes, we’re doing it live and there’s no pre-record and we’re doing a lot of the original dance routines… at the original tempos, I might add. I think we’re bringing something to your doorstep that you don’t ordinarily see. I think that makes us just a little bit special,” he says. The show is playing Sunderland Empire this week and has been snapped up by Darlington’s Civic Theatre in September.

Flavin admits his biggest battle with the lead role of Don Lockwood is having his change his costumes at the speed of light. “I’ve got wardrobe people and sound people surrounding me and they’re running wires down through my trousers and into my shoelaces.

“It took us a couple of weeks to work out all of the fine details, but it all works. We’re about two months into the tour now and a number like Singin’ In The Rain is enjoyable to do now. I don’t have to concentrate quite so hard on what I’m doing and can relax and enjoy the song and dance of a man falling in love in the rain,” he explains.

Although Flavin admits that not seeing his family in Brighton is the downside of touring, he explains: “Really, in the scheme of things I do what I love to do and, especially in the current economic, I’m fortunate to be working at all.

“I don’t have a lot to complain about, but I do miss my little girl terribly. I choose to be grateful for what I’ve got as opposed to complaining about something I perceive that I don’t have.”

Even at its dampest, Flavin is convinced that Singin’ In The Rain has enough feelgood factor to make ticket-buyers splash out.

■ Singin’ In The Rain runs until Saturday at Sunderland Empire. Box Office: 0844-847- 2499. Darlington Civic Theatre hosts performances in September, 8-12. Box Office: 01325-486-555