HE is known to all his friends and family as Stewart, but on Saturday night he became the disco star Leo Sayer.

For 50 minutes, Stewart Cousins left his area sales manager job behind and was transformed into the 1970s superstar, Leo Sayer, as part of ITV's Stars in Their Eyes programme.

The father-of-four, who sang Sayers' classic hit You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, said yesterday: "It was absolutely fantastic. It is not so much being nervous about people in the audience, but knowing the show goes out to millions of others.

"Even so, it was a tremendous experience."

Mr Cousins was chosen after his wife, Angela, sent a demo CD of him to the programme makers. They were impressed by the six tracks he sang at the auditions, but would not let him become his first choices of Jackie Wilson and Frankie Valli.

Mr Cousins, 40, from Hemlington, Middlesbrough, said: "I could not be who I was going to be, because I am not black and it is deemed not politically correct, and in last year's series someone had sung the Frankie Valli song I wanted to sing.

"However, because they liked my CD, the producer came up with the idea of transforming me into Leo Sayer, because he thought I looked a bit like him around the mouth, and it just went from there."

After being called to audition, Mr Cousins had an agonising wait to see if he had made it to the second stage. Once that was assured, he had to wait until he got his TV date.

Mr Cousins said: "I have not had time to get feedback off people yet, but no one has really had a go and everyone has been really pleased for me.

"My youngest daughter, Jessica, who is six months old, saw it recorded on video and she was just riveted to the TV, although I am not sure if she recognised me."

As for the future, Mr Cousins has no plans to give up his day job, but would if the opportunity ever arose like to do something like his singing role again.