Actor Alasdair Harvey's latest part as the cowboy who tames Calamity Jane was no worry for him - he was just relieved he didn't have to sing, despite a long career starring in musicals.

AS someone who was awarded an Andrew Lloyd Webber Scholarship, it's perhaps no surprise that Alasdair Harvey has performed mainly in musicals.

He's currently touring in one such show, Calamity Jane, although the attraction wasn't a string of hummable songs to sing. More that Alasdair, who plays Wild Bill Hickok, doesn't sing much at all. That's left to his co-star Toyah Willcox, playing the tomboy cowgirl in the stage version of the film tailored for screen star Doris Day.

"I only sing two songs," he says. "It's good to be tackling a script. Before Calamity Jane I was doing a play, Happy End, on the London fringe. That had music in it but I only had half a song to sing. You have to have some decent text to deal with after doing so many musicals. My true wish is to do less musical theatre because I've done so much."

He's appeared in straight theatre and on TV, including roles in Casualty and Holby City, but the bulk of his work since leaving Arts Educational School has been in musicals including Guys And Dolls, The Phantom Of The Opera, Les Miserables, Sunset Boulevard, Carousel, My Fair Lady, Fiddler On The Roof and Aspects Of Love. No wonder he's ready for a change.

Harvey's also keen not to repeat himself. "I've had my lean periods. The difficulty is finding work that inspires you and is something you haven't done before. So far I've never gone back and done something again," he says.

He was the Beast in the original London West End staging of Disney's Beauty And The Beast. It's a role he describes as pivotal in his career, not just because every night he turned from horrible beast into handsome prince in front of the audience's disbelieving eyes.

"It was a different scenario working with costumes and spending two hours in make-up every night. You just couldn't take it in your stride. It ain't easy but you kind of get on with it," he says. "It was a fantastic show and I had a good time. I did it for two years and it established me as a leading man."

He accepts that acting in front of a TV camera requires a totally different style. "You learn by being there at the sharp end. I'm just a novice in TV acting, but it interests me and excites me greatly," he says.

Harvey came into acting through working with amateurs from the age of 13. He was training as an electrical engineer in a naval dockyard in Scotland - he was born in Hamilton, raised in Fife - when someone suggested he should take up performing professionally.

The man who told him was Derek Horne, who came from Durham and was a former actor who became a drama lecturer at an Edinburgh college. Harvey was a member of the youth theatre that Horne set up. "He was the one main influence who said that maybe I should do it for a living," recalls Harvey.

"I was in the middle of my apprenticeship and thought, 'how do I go about this?'. Mum and dad said I should wait until the end of my apprenticeship, and I'm glad I did because it gave me some experience of life. I went to college at 20 and there were a lot of kids straight out of school. At least, I'd had to work and give something up to get there."

Because he couldn't get a grant for theatre school, college officials suggested he apply for an Andrew Lloyd Webber Scholarship. "I was fortunate. I've been back and taught there quite a few times. I'm a great believer in trying to put back something into the industry," he says.

* Calamity Jane is at York Grand Opera House until Saturday. Tickets (01904) 671818