IF this is the debut tour of Jackie the Musical, just how much of a fan of the famous 1970s-1980s teenage magazine was Janet Dibley, the grown-up star of this stage tribute?

“It was my era, and I have a sister called Jackie, so we squabbled over it because she thought the magazine was hers – it was her name. It was one of those things that you tapped into. If you didn’t have a copy then your friend had one. My mum used to buy loads from jumble sales for us to read over the summer holidays. We used to read a whole load in one go,” says Dibley.

She recalls cutting out pictures of her hero Marc Bolan, but confesses to not listening much to the music of those days. “I just joined in with everybody else in talking about the pop stars,” Dibley says.

She found her own fame in the 1980s playing Elaine Walker for four series of The Two Of Us, opposite Nicholas Lyndhurst, before EastEnders, Fat Friends, The Chase, Doctors, and most recently, Broadchurch came calling.

Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre commissioned the show by Mike James, which has choreography by Arlene Phillips, because the town is home to publishers DC Thompson, where the Jackie editorial offices were based until the presses rolled for the last time on the July 3, 1993 issue. The plot involves Dibley’s character, who just has to be called Jackie, revisiting her magazine collection as a 50-something divorcee – particularly the Cathy and Claire problem pages – while negotiating life with a still-keen ex called John (Graham Bickley) and a new love interest Max (Nicholas Bailey).

“It’s wonderfully feasible for my character to go back to her magazines. We’ve got Daisy Steere as the Young Jackie who manifests into life for the musical. It’s completely believable because nobody else can see her. So, the two of them plot her new life and the Young Jackie comes up with things like rubbing lemons on your elbows to help, and putting brown paper in your hair for curls on the first date. She’s charmingly trying to help and the older Jackie is like ‘Oh God, do I have to?’ There’s advice about kissing on a first date and all sort of mad things,” says Dibley.

Asked about any Jackie advice she remembers, Dibley jokes: “I don’t think there was a specific piece I found useful from Jackie, but it was being part of a club where the subject was boys, who were my interest in general. There were things like How To Keep Him and How To Get Him To Notice You because I wrote a diary with a lock on it which had all my secret longings in. It was all about boys and just a little about not doing revision for my GCSEs or O Levels.”

She also recalls practising kissing with her sister. “That sounds a bit raunchy today, but I can remember us saying, ‘What do you do?’ and I was lucky having a sister really because it could have altered my whole life. I think it was only one Saturday afternoon and then we said, ‘Urrgh, let’s stop that’.”

The actress reveals that Arlene Philips isn’t as tough on cast members as people might expect. “I didn’t find her tough at all. She has a clear view of what she wants, but I’m not a trained dancer and she and her helpers were imaginative with me in expressing what she wanted. She will keep going until you get what she wants. She’ll work hard and it’s great to have someone with that much energy. Obviously I remember the steps I did at youth club, but they’re not Arlene Philips,” Dibley says.

Costume-wise it’s another story. “What can I say about 1970s clothes? We have fantastic dancers and a great age range who can parade in these original outfits. I have several quick changes and one of them is into a 1970s costume and fortunately it is the only one I wear because the shoes kill me. The whole thing for me is a nostalgic whirl and I love it and every night I’m in the wings listening to other people’s scenes. My son in the show sings Hold Me Close by David Essex and I have to listen to that song every night because it’s me when I was 17. I don’t know what it is about looking back for people, but it seems to give them a grounding for where they are now. We stand outside sometimes to do bucket collections and the audience come past and say, ‘I laughed, I cried, thank you’. People are quite surprised by how moving the musical is because it touches their own memories,” says Dibley.

One hopes that Jackie the Musical has a happier ending that Jackie the Magazine.

“It does end happily, but not how you might expect it. A story has to be told, about choices and the plot takes everyone right to the edge. The women are screaming by the end of it. Jackie has the ex-husband and the internet guy she’s found and the audience shout out what they think... in quite colourful terms,” she says.

Dibley feels that she might have to act, but she doesn’t need to rely on imagination.

“I don’t have to pretend to be younger or older. I have to be me and I’m so fortunate and I can bring my feelings to the role and there are not many parts like that. I started off in musicals and I have the first and last songs plus one in the middle, but I close with I Can See Clearly Now which is just a joy every night.

“And there was that moment in rehearsals where I thought, ‘I wish I knew then, what I know now’. I’ve got a photograph of myself from that time on the front of my script and I use it to help me. It’s like I’m holding my hand going through this tour.”

n Jackie The Musical, Sunderland Empire, Tuesday, July 5 to Saturday, July 9. Box office: 0844-871-3022 or ATG tickets.com/Sunderland