PAUL Nicholas laughs when you ask what he wants to be when he grows up?

The laughter emerges because he recognises a truth in the comment. And that truth emerges from the fact few have managed to work out the performer’s actual job title.

Right now, he’s an Eastenders star, playing Kaff’s estranged husband.

But most of us came to know of Paul Nicholas back in the seventies when he released a clutch of bubblegum pop songs such as Dancing With The Captain.

And while they may have liked the musical integrity of Roxy or Bowie, they did propel the Londoner into the national spotlight.

“They did, and I certainly don’t regret them. And they made a few bob,” he adds, grinning.

What most of the public don’t know is that the former Paul Oscar Beuselinck began his showbiz career aged sixteen when he changed his name (not surprisingly) and began playing piano with Screaming Lord Sutch back in the early sixties.

The son of a showbiz lawyer then fronted a pop group called Paul Dean and the Dreamers and went on to make his name in musical theatre starring in the likes of Jesus Christ Superstar.

But it was his pop career, when in his late twenties, that took him, surprisingly, into sitcom.

“It got me noticed,” he recalls, “and John Sullivan, who wrote only Fools and Horses, got me in to audition with Jan Francis for Just Good Friends.

“It was very brave of him because when you establish yourself as a pop singer they’re not going to think of you as an actor in a sitcom.

“But we made the pilot and it was shown to a lot of women to ask their opinions and they liked me in it.”

They liked Paul Nicholas’s twinkle. He had a glint in his eye which women loved. And Jan Francis’s character certainly appeared to adore it.

For the moment however the twinkle has been stored away.

Paul, now seventy, is starring in Agatha Christie play And Then There Were None as judge Sir Lawrence Wargrave, in Glasgow.

“I don’t really know much about the Agatha Christie plays,” he says, in all honesty, but I do know this is reckoned to be the best.

“And it’s great for me to appear in. It gives me the chance to play a straight character.”

He adds, grinning; “And yes, the twinkle does have to go back in the box.”

The story tells of ten strangers lured to a remote island off the coast of Devon.

But on arrival they discovered their host, an eccentric millionaire, is missing.

At dinner, a recorded message is played accusing each of them of having a guilty secret, and one by one the guests, stranded on the island by a torrential storm, begin to die.

But who amongst them is the killer?

The play also stars another pop star turned actor Mark Wynter as Dr Armstrong, Deborah Grant of Peak Practice fame as eccentric spinster Emily Brent and former Blue Peter presenter and actor former Blue Peter presenter and actor Mark Curry as Rogers.

“I’m really enjoying it,” says Paul. “It’s such a change from what I normally do.”

But there is nothing ‘normal’ in the life of Paul Nicholas it seems. He has gone from sitcom star to west end theatre performer, and he’s appeared in a range of films such as Stardust and Tommy.

He’s become a theatre producer, the man who co-produced Saturday Night Fever in the west end and made so much money he had to push the cash to the bank in a wheelbarrow.

“But then we toured the show and lost a fortune,” he says, with a wry grin.

“Mind you, every producer I know has had a similar experience.”

But that doesn’t mean he was halted in his tracks. He’s continued to produce and direct as well as perform.

More recently he directed Joe McElderry in Tommy The Musical at the Blackpool Opera House.

“It’s great to see young talent like Joe come along,” he says. “Sometimes I can’t believe the level of talent this country produces.”

That’s great, Paul, but you still haven’t said what you want to be when you grow up?

“Who says I have to grow up,” he says, laughing.

• And Then There Were None, the Theatre Royal, October 19-24.