JUST five years ago nineties pop idol Marti Pellow's career seemed all washed up. His chart-topping band Wet,Wet,Wet had fallen apart and he was descending into a personal nightmare of drug addiction.

Cynics had already written him off when, following a highly publicised battle with heroin, a newly detoxified Pellow found his way back into the spotlight ready to relaunch his career as a solo singer.

What no one, least of all Pellow himself was prepared for, was his impending re-invention as a star of musical theatre. Yet for the past two years he has being wowing critics and audiences alike playing crooked lawyer Billy Flynn in the box office busting show Chicago.

Currently playing Southampton's Mayflower Theatre where Chicago completes a two week run on Saturday, Pellow has also performed the part in The West End, Tokyo and most recently on Broadway.

And he says he's loving every minute of it of this show penned by the legendary team of Kander and Ebb and originally choreographed by the late, great Bob Fosse.

"I'm having a fantastic time, an absolute ball," he told me. "Not only is Chicago superb as piece of musical theatre but it's as relevant today as it ever was, addressing things like the manipulation of the media and so on."

As for Billy Flynn, he says he can't imagine a more enjoyable role. "It's so much fun. I love playing the character. Flynn is horribly slimy and having met a few dishonest and slimy lawyers in my time I'm never short on

inspiration."

He also has lavish praise for Ann Reinking's interpretation of the classic Fosse choreography.

All of which is pretty impressive for a working class boy from Glasgow who claims to have known nothing about musicals before joining this show. He was actually signed up after a couple of bigwigs from the Chicago production team spotted him performing at a charity gig for the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall.

Ironically that benefit show was organised by Who guitarist Pete Townshend who, more than a decade earlier, had asked Pellow if he'd be interested in playing the title role in his rock opera Tommy. "I told him that musicals weren't my bag," he chuckles.

Happily he didn't give the Chicago producers quite the same answer and, after being taken to see the show, leapt at the chance to expand his career.

"It's great to try new things and have an ecelctic mix in your life," he says. "It tends to open the way for other projects."

He admits though that being in Chicago has rather spoiled him and that finding another musical equally good could prove difficult.

"I wouldn't mind being in Nine, mind you - the musical based on Fellini's Eight and a Half," he says. Who'd have thought it. Marti Pellow talking about Fellini? But then as he admits he has come "a very long way" from his humble Glaswegian roots.

"You know never a day goes by when I don't realise that I'm a very lucky man," he tells me. " I really do thank wherever it comes from because its not something that should be taken for granted."

Marti Pellow is in Chicago at the Mayflower in Southampton until Satuday October 9. Telephone 023 8071 1811