When West End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher was first approached about starring in the new UK tour of Calamity Jane (Manchester Opera House, January 21-25), there was one person who wanted her to take on the role more than anyone else: her mum.
There was something about the gun-slinging, whip-cracking frontierswoman first immortalised on screen in 1953 by Doris Day that Fletcher's mum knew her daughter was born to play. So when the offer was made, the 32-year-old performer could hardly say no.
"Throughout my whole adult career, mum has always said she would love to see me playing the part," Carrie says. "It's her dream role for me. I looked into it and listened to the songs and watched Doris Day and just fell in love with it. Doris is such an icon. All I had to do was prepare my mum not to get her hopes up: things do fall through, you never know what might happen..."
But Carrie is now set to tour the country in the iconic role of the fearless heroine. As one of theatre's brightest stars, she is already known for appearances in some of the biggest productions of recent years, such as Les Misérables and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella.
But playing Calamity is another kind of dream role - because it pushes her as a performer: "She's romantic lead, gets a great love story, has an amazing female friendship with Katie Brown and gets all the cracking, belty numbers. She’s not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, but all of them. Parts like that are really rare. She's been great fun to get to know."
Carrie says her character is a "gun-slinging, whip-cracking woman prone to making a few blunders and mistakes"; but it's also about femininity, particularly in her relationship with Wild Bill Hickok, played in this production by actor Vinny Coyle.
"There are conversations between her and Wild Bill where he says 'Why can’t you be more feminine?'", Carrie explains. "She goes through a Cinderella story finding it, but ultimately ends up going back to who she is comfortable as, and being loved and accepted for it. And that's all hidden in this funny, farcical story."
The musical features famous songs such as The Deadwood Stage and Secret Love, which Carrie is relishing singing. To many the score will be best known for being sung by Doris Day, but Carrie isn't daunted by the task of making it hers: "I feel I have been entrusted with the role and I need to be the one to decide who this version of Calamity Jane is. If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. But if they do, it means all the more."
Carrie's down-to-earth nature and easygoing attitude is a product of her upbringing by loving, hard-working people in Harrow, north London. As a child she watched her older brother Tom (now of McFly fame) attend theatre school and star in Oliver! at the London Palladium.
Keen to have a go, Carrie did weekend classes at the Sylvia Young school and aged seven landed the role of the young Eponine in Les Mis, following that with parts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins.
Later Carrie was cast as the older Eponine in Les Mis and her path to musical theatre stardom was set.
Alongside her work in theatre, Fletcher also has a successful writing career, with a series of books for young people. She also has a huge social media following, with more than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram - which come with pressures of their own.
"I got messages at 16 and they completely broke me, Carrie admitted. "It was my mum who helped me deal with the nasty side of social media. She was good at saying 'That's enough, close the laptop and we'll go for a walk'. My parents are the best people."
For now, Carrie is all about Calamity Jane and the UK tour, which will see her on the road for the best part of a year.
If juggling motherhood - she is the mother of a one-year-old girl - and starring in a major touring show wasn't enough, Fletcher has also mastered a new skill. Her Calamity Jane cast mates are actor-musicians and she will also be picking up an instrument, though perhaps not a conventional one.
"I get to play the coconuts," she laughs. "I am the horse. So while everyone else is incredibly talented with saxophone, trumpet and cello, I'll be focusing on the coconuts. They're only used once so far, but I reckon they will make a reappearance..."
More info and tickets here. Calamity Jane also visits Sunderland Empire (Feb 4-8), Leeds Grand (Mar 4-8), Liverpool Empire (April 22-26), York Grand Opera House (April 29-May 3), Sheffield Lyceum (Jun 10-14), Blackpool Opera House (June 24-28), Hull New Theatre (Jul 22-26), Venue Cymru, Llandudno (Aug 26-30), Bradford Alhambra (Sep 2-6).