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To those who still associate him with Alfie Moon on the BBC soap, it might seem an unlikely role for the actor, but Richie Is no stranger to the drag scene.

“My dad used to run clubs in London so from age ten I was used to seeing men in drag,” he reveals. “Then on one of my very first tours, when I was 17 or 18, there were three drag queens and two strippers in the show.

“I knew drag queens, I grew up with them, and I knew Danny La Rue. It’s funny now, if you’d have said to me 30-odd years ago that drag would be mainstream I’d have said ‘don’t be stupid’, but drag is mainstream now and quite rightly so.”

Not that he found it easy slipping into high heels. “I had a nightmare,” he admits. “With my left calf muscle, even when I just talk about putting on the heels I can feel it twingeing. It’s one thing standing in five-inch heels, it’s another thing to walk in them and another thing entirely to dance in them.

“Layton (Williams, playing the title role) and the other drag queens in the show helped me and I’d do the school run, then come home, put the heels on and walk around the kitchen. My wife was like, ‘seriously, if the Tesco delivery man comes you’re not answering the door in high heels’, but I walked everywhere in them.”

The actor says he was sorry he was only in the show in the West End for three months, having signed up to go on tour as Archie Rice in The Entertainer.

“It felt like ‘I’m just starting to have fun and I want to do more of it’. Then the opportunity to do the tour came up and I went ‘yes’. Also, my kids loved it and I want every kid in the country to see it. It is such a great message for them.

“It’s all about inclusivity and acceptance. The unconditional love of parents for their kids and support from friends and school mates. It’s about beating prejudice people and living your life to the best for you and those around you.

“It’s so relevant.” he continues. “We’re in a country where there are so many social, political and cultural changes going on and people are being divided. We’re getting angry with each other, there’s the Far Left and the Far Right, then here’s a show that goes ‘be who you wanna be, let others be who they want to be and celebrate diversity’.”

In his time, Richie has been a stand-up comic, game show presenter and singer, but admits there is a whole generation who only knew him as Alfie Moon, which meant a lot of mums came to see the show with their kids.

“If I can bring another generation to come see Jamie – the 40-plus-year-olds who wouldn’t normally come see a show like this – and then they love it, then I’m happy,” he says.

“From the outside looking in they might be like ‘oh, it’s about a gay boy who wants to wear a dress’ but it’s not about that at all. Right at the beginning he’s going ‘I’m gay, get over it’. It’s not about someone being gay, it’s about someone who dares to be different.”

Richie is pleased be bringing Everybody’s Talking About Jamie back to its home city but there’s another reason he is happy to be in Sheffield. “It’s where we kind of kicked off Boogie Nights, the musical I co-wrote and co-produced, in the early days,” he says.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is at the Sheffield Lyceum from February 8-29.