She shot to fame in the West End musical Hairspray. Leanne Jones tells Steve Pratt the naked truth about her new stage role.

ASK Leanne Jones to describe the characters she plays in stage comedy The Naked Truth and she replies: “She’s a big girl who gets all the guys.” And for that she’s very grateful, because she’s had enough of scripts in which big girls are being bullied or picked on.

A comedy about a group of women at a pole dancing class is a world away from the musical in which she made her name – Hairspray.

She played Tracy Turnblad in the London West End production for two years and for once the much-used phrase “shot to fame” seems appropriate.

Before treading the boards of the Shaftesbury Theatre opposite Michael Ball (in drag, playing her mother), she was an unknown.

Tracy was her first professional role straight from training at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

The show played to full houses and Jones won an Olivier for best actress in a musical, the Critics Circle Award for best newcomer and a Theatregoers’ Choice award for best actress in a musical.

Picking up her Olivier brought home how successful she’d been. “Jeff Goldblum and Barbara Windsor presented me with the award. I love that guy and couldn’t really speak to him.

I was starstruck,” she says.

“It all happened so quickly. It was a whirlwind and then back to reality. I do believe it’s a marathon not a sprint.”

She moved from Hairspray to pantomime and then no work for a few months. 2010 was, she admits, a very difficult year. She’d do shop work during the day and unpaid cabaret in the evening to keep her hand in. That and singing at the newly-reopened Savoy Hotel in London on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and soon on Valentine’s Day.

She was doing an unpaid musical when the The Naked Truth tour came along. “I had a good read of the script and realised she was a fun character to play,” says Jones.

“It’s about six different women from different walks of life who come together at pole dancing classes and, as the play goes on, we find out each person’s story and why they behave in a certain way.

“They’re all great friends by the end. It’s quite uplifting.”

The production, which is playing onenighters around the country, also stars Michelle Heaton, Maureen Nolan, Clare King and June Buckfield.

Pole dancing, increasingly used in fitness classes, isn’t something Jones had done before, apart from “mucking around” in her favourite club in London.

“I did a few classes before the production.

You feel very sexy, not insecure, which you think you would. My routine at the end is very short. I wish I could do a bit more but you have to have good body strength.

“The other characters are incredible. What they can do is amazing. My character is the comedy part so I can get away with mucking around.”

She’s enjoying seeing the country on tour, back on the road after a Christmas break. It continues until June. “I’m from Stoke, my parents live in Cambridge and I’ve lived in London since I was 18 but don’t know much about the rest of the country. So it’s good to get the chance to look around,” she says.

The audiences are mainly female although some women drag their husbands along. “You can see at the beginning they’re thinking, ‘what’s she brought me to see?’ but by the end they are whooping the loudest. And they get to see six women pole dance.”

After leaving Hairspray, Jones knew finding the next part wouldn’t be easy or necessarily come along immediately. “That’s the climate of being an actor at the moment, especially if you’re a character actress. You have to wait for the right role,” she says.

“So it’s been tough but a lot of people’s industries have been tough. With the Government cutting the performance budget, it’s not going to get any easier.

“With Hairspray it was the start of the recession but we played to full houses. People want escapism, they want to go out and see something.”

That show was truly life-changing for her – a big break from her first professional role.

“This is what I always wanted to do. I trained and imagined I would play the lead role in the West End one day, but to have that as your first job – and I was 22 – is amazing.”

* Feb 12, York Grand Opera House. 0844- 847-2322, grandoperahouseyork.org.uk;

March 28-30, Middlesbrough Theatre. 01642- 815181, middlesbrough.gov.uk/entertainment;

April 11-13, Sunderland Empire. 0844-847- 2499, sunderlandempire.org.uk