SOUND Of Music star Julie Andrews plays down her singing comeback in the Princess Diaries movie sequel. But it's a surprise as it seemed her singing days were over after an operation left her vocal chords damaged.

In Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement - in which she reprises her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldo - the song Your Crowning Glory marks the singing return of Dame Julie. She performs the duet with Disney Channel star Raven.

She and director Garry Marshall discussed putting a song into the film, but both had the right to veto it if they weren't happy with the result. "I am not singing and I am not making a big comeback," she insists. "It's not exactly singing. I call it Rex Harrison sing-speak. Happily with a very simple song with a lot of children and a lot of sing-speaking on my part, we managed to pull it off."

Andrews, who created the role of Eliza Doolittle in the stage musical My Fair Lady, is happy that movie musicals are coming back into fashion after a period when no-one in Hollywood wanted to make them. "One of the reasons is price because movies are so ridiculously expensive these days and musicals certainly are. Probably the era of simply breaking into song for no reason whatsoever has to some extent passed, although Moulin Rouge was the exception.

"Certainly my hope is that musicals are coming back with a vengeance. There's an enormous amount of talent and usually what you see on Broadway will eventually show up on your screen, if it's been successful, about three years later. Chicago was a wonderfully welcome return. It was brilliantly done and I thought it was a wonderful movie."

She noticed in a documentary she made recently on the Broadway musical theatre that in the hardest of times, like depression or war, musicals become very bright and cheerful. "I suspect that in these hard times something like those lovely movies are no bad thing to have around as escapism from a lot of worry and pressure," she says.

* Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (U) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 21/10/2004