Katy Secombe is carrying the torch of entertainment inherited form her famous - and much loved - father. She tells Steve Pratt about how she has arrived at a leading role in a top musical.

KATY Secombe has come up in the world since she was last on stage in Yorkshire - from maid to prison governor. Straight out of drama school, the youngest daughter of Goon and singer Harry Secombe went into rep at Harrogate Theatre during Andrew Manley's time as artistic director. The maid in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit was the first of four roles she did back-to-back at the theatre.

"It was great. In those days that was, in a sense, how you learnt your trade and I'm really glad I had that chance," she says.

She returns to Yorkshire, not to Harrogate but to York and the Grand Opera House, early in the New Year in the musical Chicago. As Mama Morton, she rules with a rod of iron the women's prison where most of the action takes place.

She's on the road for nine months with the Chicago tour, which has already visited Sunderland Empire. "It's fun, you have to get your mindset on touring and make sure everything is settled at home - and then go and have a great time," says Secombe.

She'd never seen Chicago on stage, although she was familiar with the movie version starring Renee Zellwegger, Catherine Zeta Jones and Queen Latifah as Mama Morton.

"It's good in a way not having seen the stage production because you can do what you want about the part. I'd known about the role and wondered if I could do it," she explains.

"I'm quite short, there's not a lot of me so I can't play big and powerful. I play little and powerful, like a little Napoleon. She comes on to a fanfare and sings her song. You have to mentally gear yourself up to it."

She's been making a speciality of musicals in recent years, although that wasn't a deliberate act. She played a Hotbox Girl and understudied Miss Adelaide in Guys And Dolls at the National Theatre before going into hit West End show Mamma Mia!.

"I felt I wanted to do something different and I got Les Miserables on the back of that, then went for Mama Morton," she says.

"There are times in your career when you get on a certain roll and just have to go with it."

Harry Secombe, of course, was well-known as a singer so inevitably she grew up in a musical household. "Dad was always singing in the background and laughing a lot," she recalls. "We were all involved in some sort of singing to a certain degree, but I didn't really start singing properly until I went to drama school."

She spent two years playing the disgusting, nasty Madame Thenardier in Les Mis. The character doesn't appear all the way through the epic musical so Secombe was to be found at other times in the chorus playing other characters, including a prostitute and a factory worker.

"I asked to do that because Madame Thenardier is one of those parts where you can sit in solitary splendour and never see another single person. It's better to be involved in other things on stage because it's an ensemble show. You can't do that in a show like Chicago because everyone has their own spot."

She spent her time as Madame T covered from head to foot in dirt. "She was another great bitch. That's the thing, if you're an actress in musicals you get to play lovely fleshed out parts - and get to sing as well," she says. "With Mama Morton, it's concentrated. It's mentally tiring but not physically. You have to be very focused and keep up the energy for the time you're on."

Six years ago she also found time to co-found a theatre company, Pandora's Box, with a fellow drama school student. "We just started as a children's party company to do shows in your parlour for busy mums and dads. We'd do a little show in someone's living room to begin with, then we started writing shows and going into schools," says Secombe.

"We're both quite creative and like to write, and it's really important to flex different muscles. Although your main job is performing, it's nice to write as well. We wanted to make some work for ourselves and make us more fulfilled as people. Then, all of a sudden, we were doing school shows. "These days, they have someone to run the company for them, although they make creative decisions and write shows.

She doesn't see much difference between doing musicals or straight theatre. "You either have a great laugh on a show or you don't," she says. "People think you don't laugh in Shakespeare, but you do. I did A Winter's Tale at the National and haven't laughed so much in my life."

* Chicago is at York Grand Opera House from January 9 - 20. Tickets 0870-6063595.