Viv Hardwick discovers why Ross Noble agreed to join the cast of The Producers at Sunderland Empire Theatre

TOMORROW night (Friday, May 15) North-East comedian Ross Noble is due to switch motorbike leathers for lederhosen as he takes over the role of former Nazi Franz Liebkind in The Producers, which is currently running at the Sunderland Empire until Saturday (May 16).

"It's weird really. The lederhosen is quite freeing actually. I thought it would be quite restrictive, but it's lovely soft leather and the first time I put it on I thought, 'I might get myself a pair of these for lounging around the house'," he says.

"The only problem is that the straps go over your shoulders. So, if you shrug it lifts everything and that's only good if I want to hit the high notes. Now, I only have to raise my hands." Noble adds.

Originally, the Cramlington-born comic wasn't joining the musical until after it played Wearside.

"Basically, the producers of the The Producers kept pestering me. I've only just got back from Australia off the back of an eight-month tour and I was being very sensible about it and thought, 'It would make sense to start in the North-East, but I've only got a week of rehearsal'," explains Noble who was worried about still being jet-lagged after taking his Tangentleman act around the world.

"I started rehearsing back in January and it made sense to them that I did the Friday and Saturday in Sunderland. They said, 'You're going to be at the Empire anyway rehearsing, go in and do it'," he says.

As a result, one of Britain's most popular stand-ups finds himself singing In Old Bavaria and the Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop – "where Leo Bloom (Jason Manford) and Max Bialystock (Cory English) have to sing Hitler's favourite tune before Franz will let them use his show Springtime For Hitler". There's also a burst of Deutschland Deutschland über Alles and the famous Haben Sie gehört das deutsche Band? song which was almost invented for Noble's surreal sense of humour.

"When the show was doing the pre-publicity for the tour the producers got girls in German Army uniforms and drove a tank to the UKIP conference, which hit the headlines," says Noble, who agreed to join the cast because he's a huge fan of creator Mel Brooks.

"I absolutely love the show and I've always been a massive fan of Mel Brooks' films. I had the soundtrack on my iPod and used to listen to it all the time. The big thing, and the reason I got the call, was down to Jason Manford. Jason had done Sweeney Todd in the West End and loves musicals and he was cast in The Producers and they wanted the show to appeal to a full-on comedy audience and Jason told them that I could sing and do foreign accents and it was obvious, but a lot of people wouldn't have put the two of us together," he says.

"So, they asked me to come in to chat about the show and the next thing I'm singing and dancing."

Noble jokes that he should probably see his daughters, Elife and Willow, at some point having been away from home for nearly a year.

"They came out to Australia with my wife and it's been mad. I was doing the gigs in the evening and coming back to the hotel and seeing them in the morning. The Producers is going to be like a nice holiday because I'll be able to sleep in until lunch-time and because we're doing a week in each place I'm not packing and unpacking all the time," says Noble.

He pays tribute to the "insanely brilliant" ensemble on the Producers and he feels that joining the show, replacing Phill Jupitus, is the ideal scenario for him.

"I've got a character who is peppered throughout the show and I'm not carrying the whole thing. From my point of view, all of my songs are funny and the script is just perfect for me. If you're going to do a musical, I couldn't ask for a more perfect way of doing it," he says.

This is a swift return to Sunderland for Noble, because he visited the area for his Dave TV series Freewheeling, which has caught on with fans because the comedian asks for live requests from his Twitter followers on where to go next, and the results are then filmed.

"It was one of my favourite bits of the whole series. A guy told me he was up in court and that is was nothing serious like murder. So, we travelled up to Sunderland to meet him and the destination was a derelict pub just outside the Nissan factory. Apparently, he was being asked to repay the money for a courtesy car and we decided to get involved and start a campaign called Justice For Brian (Aslett from Fulwell). We put up posters and got the local radio station involved and got 60 people to turn up at court and had a court artist doing pictures. At one point we were told the case was being moved up because of the media interest.

"Some solicitors also got in on the joke. In episode two, a woman called Beth from Laser Quest ran past in a dragon onesie and everyone said we had to do something using the Loch Ness monster and we brought a load of Highland warriors down to Sunderland City Centre to slay the dragon. They didn't want to do that because the dragon represents Scotland and we ended up with a warrior and a woman dressed like a dinosaur doing a love scene to the music of Billy Ocean all around Sunderland City Centre.

"This meant that episode three also started in Sunderland. Sadly, Brian lost his case, but that's the way the show goes."

The Producers runs at Sunderland Empire until Saturday. Box Office: 0844-871-3022 or atgtickets.com