Quotes from Michael Ball

I love a drink. But I've never, ever in my life been on a stage and done a performance with an alcoholic drink inside me. Never have, never would. I've seen people who do and invariably they're never as good as they think they are.

We're so stuck in our heads with social media that we don't get to meet people and go out to have a joint experience unless we go to a live event, like the theatre.

You can't ever make assumptions about a family tree.

I don't think you last very well in this business if you're trendy because trends come and go.

I need to have a sleep before a show and a quiet hour. I need to get dressed following the same routine. And I like to smell right for a show.

The biggest myth I'd like to bust isn't about me - it's about musicals. So many people dismiss the entire art form through highbrow snobbery, but I think a lot of those people would be suprised if they actually saw some.

I've heard everyone do 'Bring Him Home' from 'Les Miserables.' When Colm Wilkinson did it, I truly never thought I would hear anyone as good, never mind better.

Legally we have integration, social acceptance and diversity... but that doesn't mean... everybody is down with it.

I've got soft features, curly hair with blonde bits and dimples. People think of me as a singer, an entertainer, someone who's always there with a ready smile.

I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. But then a lady at the youth theatre asked me if I'd ever thought of going to drama school.

I'm not a big fan of Christmas, and I think there are a lot of people who feel a bit melancholy at the holiday.

Try to leave people feeling better for having met you.

When I was 19 and at drama school, a couple of friends and I decided to drive from Guildford through France, down to the heel of Italy and then take a ferry to Greece - in an MG Midget. On our second day, in France, we were in a very bad accident and wrote off the car so we had to go home. But we then flew out instead and went island hopping.

When I was playing Marius in the inaugural production of 'Les Mis,' I contracted glandular fever which developed into a post-viral depression. I was 23 and I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.

The one I really get on with is Princess Anne. Talk about calls a spade a shovel! And she's so clued-up. She's a patron of a number of charities. I've been involved in a couple and she's not just a name. She knows the research programmes that are going on. She really does her homework.

I absolutely love 'Big Brother' and 'Celebrity Big Brother' and have never missed a series - but I would never appear on them.

As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.

Musicals aren't two-dimensional froth.

I was very close to my grandmother, Agnes Parry. She was a typical matriarchal leader of the family and the community. People looked up to her and would always go to her for advice and help.

I made a conscious decision to stop watching 'Big Brother.' I was an avid fan, but I felt it was time to move on.

Having grown up in musical theatre, I know what works and what doesn't.

Theatres, stages are dangerous places.

For the millennium, we flew to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Pangkor Laut, a nearby island.