A fading star and the golden age of the movies will come flooding back to life with the arrival of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s award-winning masterpiece Sunset Boulevard.

Starring Ria Jones as Norma Desmond and Strictly Come Dancing’s Danny Mac as Joe Gillis, this all time great musical is a story of romance and obsession, based on Billy Wilder’s legendary film.

In her mansion on Sunset Boulevard, silent-screen goddess Norma Desmond, lives in a fantasy world while impoverished screen writer, Joe Gillis, on the run from debt collectors, stumbles into her reclusive world. Persuaded to work on Norma’s ‘masterpiece’, he is seduced by her luxurious life-style and becomes entrapped in a claustrophobic world.

Sunset Boulevard comes to the theatre in St Helen’s Street, Ipswich, on March 5 to 10. For tickets, priced from £19.50 to £49, call the box office on 01473 433100 or go online at ipswichregent.com

Simon Button catches up with Danny Mac

What are you most enjoying about playing Joe Gillis?

I love the level that he starts at in the show. I think it comes with age, but with a lot of the characters I've played previously, they've been young men discovering themselves and stuff whereas this guy is a man and he's already been through it all. He's kind of at the end of his tether in this situation already and that's just when the show opens, so from that point you just build and build. You jump on that treadmill and you keep on running straight through to the end, which means the character's journey feels so much more substantial and full. You go on that journey and you take the audience with you from start to finish.

How would you sum him up as a character?

He's wonderfully flawed. He hasn't gotten everything right but he thinks he has. Everything is told from his point of view and he doesn't really see his mistakes; he thinks it's him who is doing everything right and everyone and everything else is failing around him when actually it's him who is making the wrong decisions. That's where it leads to at the end – you see his downfall because of that and I think it's what brings about his demise. He's dug his own grave essentially.

William Holden was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the film version and many big names have played the role in the musical. Have you watched the movie or have you avoided that so you can give your own take on it?

I've approached the character like it's brand new, which is really nice. I knew of the show and the basic story but I didn't know the details of it. It was from listening to the soundtrack and reading the script that I realised it's a role that's impossible to say no to. I actually told my agent I wasn't keen on doing a musical straight after having done On The Town over the summer, but then I listened to the soundtrack and read the script and I phoned my agent back and said 'I think we need to rethink this because this character is just fantastic'. I've watched the film because stylistically the show has grown out of the movie, not just in terms of the film itself but also the era in which it was set and the time it was filmed. The show is very true to the original conception.

What are the big challenges about the show for you as a performer?

I have an incredible duty to tell the story as essentially the narrator of the show. There are impeccable performances from the entire the cast and it's based around four main characters – namely Norma, Max, Betty and Joe – but I've got to narrate the story so it's about getting every bit of information over and serving the piece and everyone else's performances in the right way.

You're clearly in great shape but have you buffed up for the Act Two opening number where you emerge from a pool in just your bathers?

If anything I've had to do the opposite because going to the gym actually hinders me vocally. It's about trying to find a healthy balance – eating well and keeping fit to a certain degree. I've not been to the gym as much as I have before but I do like to maintain a level of fitness. It's good for working in general because if you don't keep fit you start getting sick and that whole thing snowballs. But the most important thing about this job is going out and doing it justice, and vocally it's been a massive challenge.

What have you learned from working with such a skilled performer as Ria Jones, who plays Norma Desmond in the show?

She's incredible and she's the reason the show is going out on tour. She is such a success story [having been Glenn Close's understudy in the West End and appearing when Close was off sick] and also Ria created this role in its original conception with Andrew Lloyd Webber some 26 years ago. It's only now that she's old enough to play it and it seems so poetic that it's come full circle and she's able to do the show. She's an absolute triumph in it and such a joy to work with. My Joe would be nothing without her Norma.

What's your fondest memory of doing Strictly?

It's got to be the dance routines I was able to produce each week, which constantly reminds me now of things I'm able to do even though I might not think I can. That's something I'll always take from doing that show. If I'd been asked to play Joe Gillis before I'd done Strictly I'd probably have said no simply through fear that I couldn't do it and a million people could do it better. But this role, as far as I'm concerned, belongs to me and I own it. I don't mean that in a cocky or arrogant way, but if you don't walk out there and own that role you're doing the piece and the rest of the cast a disservice as well as yourself.

What's the one thing you couldn't be on tour without?

I have to take my NutriBullet and my coffee machine. [Laughs] The fantastic thing about the former is that you can make all the healthy stuff in it and all the milkshakes as well as cocktails! But you can't make coffee in it so my Nespresso has to come with me too.

Do you have any pre- or post-show rituals?

I try and refrain because as soon as you create them as an actor you become addicted to them and so serious about them. You build up this whole list of things you have to do. I just do a warm-up and brush my teeth when I go on stage but that's about it. Then after a show I always have a shower. I have to wash the role away, it feels like. Shower, be me again, then I'm fresh to leave.