Carrie Hope Fletcher aims to make her mark as hotshot Calamity Jane in musical touring to Nottingham and Sheffield

Carrie, who has three WhatsOnStage awards for best actress in a musical and is a two-times Grammy nominee, will tread the boards at Nottingham Theatre Royal from March 25 to 29 and at Sheffield Lyceum from June 10 to 14, 2025.

The character of gun-slinging frontierswoman, immortalised by Doris Day on screen in 1953, is a role that Carrie’s mum knew her daughter was born to play.

Carrie said: “My mum had always said I would be a good Calamity Jane and through the entirety of my adult career she has always said she would love to see my playing the part. So, I looked into it and listened to the songs and watched the movie and fell in love with it. Doris is such an icon.”

She is following in the footsteps of Carol Burnett, Barbara Windsor, Toyah Willcox, Jodie Prenger and novelist Lynda La Plant who have all tackled the fearless heroine.

“I am relatively new to the whole world of Calamity Jane, but it’s a dream role in terms of her as a character,” said Carrie in an interview with Matthew Hemley. “She is romantic lead, gets a great love story, has an amazing female friendship with Katie Brown and gets all the cracking, belty numbers. She ticks all of those boxes and it’s so wonderful she’s not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it. Parts like that are really rare and she has been great fun to get to know.”

The musical features songs such as The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away) and Secret Love, all of which Fletcher is relishing getting to sing.

To many, the score will be best known for being sung by Day, and there may well be fans of the musical who can’t imagine the role being played by anyone else.

For some performers, that could be a daunting prospect, but Fletcher is not afraid of the task ahead. She said: “I have a good mindset about the pressure that comes with that. You can’t please everyone as everyone has different versions of what they want the character to be. If you tried to please people, you would come up with this warped version that isn’t anyone’s dream version.

“I feel like I have been entrusted with the role, and I need to be the one to decide who this version of Calamity Jane is. And if people don’t like it, they don’t like it. But if they do, it means all the more.”

As a young kid, Carrie watched her older brother, Tom (now of McFly fame) attend Sylvia Young Theatre School and star in Oliver! at the London Palladium. Keen to try it herself, Carrie did weekend classes at Sylvia Young’s and was also signed to the school’s agency.

Aged seven, she landed the part of young Eponine in Les Mis, before roles came along in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. She learned on the job, soaking up everything she could from her co-stars and was eventually signed to leading agency Curtis Brown.

Through them, Carrie went on to be cast as the older Eponine in Les Mis and her path to musical theatre stardom was set.

But while Carrie may have followed in her brother’s footsteps, initially, it now seems he is following in hers. The McFly frontman has recently penned The Creakers, a brand-new musical, and is also about to work on a musical based on Paddington.

Alongside her work in theatre, Carrie also has a successful writing career, publishing a series of books for young people, and also has a huge social media following, beginning - as she did - by vlogging on YouTube. Today, her YouTube channel has more than 500,000 subscribers, while hundreds of thousands also follow her on Instagram.

Tickets are priced from £22.50 for the Nottingham run of Calamity Jane, go to www.trch.co.uk or call 0115 989 5555; Sheffield tickets start at £15, available from www.sheffieldtheatres.co.ukor call 0115 2496000. and from £15 for the Sheffield run.