A voice from the theatre audience shouted out to actor Oliver Chopping: "You'd make a lovely soldier". As he was wearing a frock and high heels, you have to wonder at the imagination of the person making the comment.

Bradford-born, Worthing-raised Chopping is the only male in the cast of Alan Plater's nostalgic play Blonde Bombshells Of 1943, which comes to York next week.

First seen at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 2004, the musical toured in a rewritten version earlier this year. Now the production is embarking on another 14-week tour.

The piece features 1940s numbers by Fats Waller, The Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller among others as a wartime all-girl Northern swing band attempts to recruit new members.

Chopping's Patrick joins their ranks in an attempt to escape being called up. Hence the soldier comment from an audience member on the previous tour.

"It's great to be back. We're making a few little changes and freshening things up," he says.

Touring isn't too much of a shock as he's played most of the theatres that Blonde Bombshells is visiting on a previous tour. His first job out of drama school - Rada - was playing Russell the love muscle in Phillip Ridley's piece for young audiences, Sparkleshark.

Chopping plays piano and percussion, so could play the drums before being cast. What he'd never done is play wearing a frock and high heels, his disguise once he joins the blonde bombshells.

"We do a huge gig at the end of the show and to drum in high heels took me about four weeks to master. I'm fine now," he says.

"It's my first time in a frock, a whole new experience for me. I don't know how women walk in high heels, let alone drum in them."

He loves listening to the swing music with which Plater has filled the show. "He knows his jazz and the music is great to play," says Chopping.

The cast researched the music and the bands of the period and, in Cornwall, had the chance to meet surviving members of the Ivy Benson band.

His interest in the stage was fostered at school, which had a good drama department and helped him win a place in the National Youth Theatre.

"I'd like to have become a professional musician. I can do both at the moment in the show," he says. "This is my favourite because I'm doing the three things I love - acting, music and singing."

He was in the film of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera but didn't sing. He had a speaking part as a porter in an auction scene at the beginning. To work on a such a large-scale production with a Hollywood director like Joel Schumacher was great, he says.

He also made a Bollywood film, shot at London's Ealing Studios for director Jay Mundra, with Jason Connery and former Bros member Matt Goss among the cast.

He considers himself lucky because it's quite rare for an actor to get "to do the whole thing - film, television and theatre".

The first Blonde Bombshells tour proved a big success. "We were pretty much sold out for most of it," he says. "Everybody loves a bit of nostalgia and the music is a seven-piece swing band playing classics".

* Blonde Bombshells Of 1943: York Grand Opera House, May 29-June 2. Tickets 0870-6063595.

Steve Pratt