Ben Richards’ rise to fame mirrors the Billy Elliot story. Here he tells Katherine MacAlister about beating cancer, trying his luck in the US and why musicals still do it for him

Ben Richards is playing a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss” in the Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5, and loving it. “My character Franklin Hart is really horrible,” he says, “but he has some great dialogue, and as he’s the opposite type to me, he’s easy and fun to play.”

Surrounded by dominant females, Ben is hugely outnumbered, which he’s also revelling in. So does he feel threatened? “No, there’s lots of men in the cast and we all get on really well. But the story, set in the 1980s, is about three women who take over the office and do a better job than Frank.”

But while we, in Oxford, will see Ben in the all-singing-all-dancing production, he leaves the tour in February to go and try his luck in the States, returning in May.

“It’s just castings and pilots for new shows. I have a US agent I have no expectations, that would be crazy, so if it happens it happens. If not I haven’t lost anything. I just want to give it my best shot and if they like you fantastic, if not you put it down to experience, it’s just a case of going and trying it out.”

And then he pauses: “I was meant to go last year but then I got cancer, so had to postpone things.”

Ben, who is only 39, took eight months off to recover from bowel cancer. The experience must have changed him?

“Absolutely. I am trying to embrace life, there are no second chances. These things happen,” he shrugs moving on.

The show is hugely physical, how is he coping?

“The body is holding up,” Ben grins.

Musicals are where it all started for Ben back in the day before TV and film beckoned. Ben was brought up in Bognor Regis, and as a boy, used to sit in on his sister’s dance classes, waiting until she’d finished, tapping away in time, until the teachers asked if he wanted to join in.

“It was a very Billy Elliot story, but they saw I had aptitude, even though no other boys were dancing in Bognor, so I took up jazz and ballet as well which helped me get into a performing arts college where I built my voice up.

Next up was the West End, then TV and most recently a film called Chakara.” What was his big break?

“Footballers’ Wives – they wanted new faces and that set the ball rolling,” Ben says, “but to then get on a cult show like The Bill helped a lot because having a profile does make you more appealing at the box office. I’ve been very lucky.”

And yet it’s musicals that Ben is drawn back to time and time again. So what were his favourite roles? “Saturday Night Fever at the London Palladium put my name on the map, and The Full Monty was a great script and a totally different style, Guys and Dolls was so classy and the perfect musical, and then Priscilla Queen of the Desert – because playing a gay drag queen really scared me, which is what I enjoy!”

He must be proud to have starred in such classics? “Musicals are what I started with and went back to, but it’s been great to get about in a few different genres and even when I was off with cancer, in that eight months I learned what I wanted to do. And I wanted to see the country, so the 9 to 5 tour has been great.”

  • Ben Richards stars in 9 to 5 on Monday-Saturday, December 3-8 at Oxford’s New Theatre.
  • Call the box office on 0844 871 3020 or go to atgtickets.com/oxford