Jane’s Friday night feeling
but with a voice like that he needs to sing. They’ve had to edit so much out. I love a natter and once we got chatting we could have made it a two-hour show.”
Jane invited telly bosses along to see her sold- out stage shows and they have looked to replicate that, with her own orchestra and plenty audience involvement.
“It’s going out on Friday evening – because that’s when my other Channel 5 series has been on – but it’s like bringing back one of the big Saturday night shows,” says Jane.
“I grew up watching Lulu, Cilla Black, Tom Jones and Cliff Richard with their own shows and getting to do that myself is like a dream.”
Jane has been back at sea with another Channel 5 series, Cruising With Jane Mcdonald, and says life afloat fits her like a glove.
“I’ve loved cruising all my life and I was sick of it getting a bad reputation.
“I’m really happy with the way people have taken to it and the following it’s got. Having a good time, meeting new friends, seeing the world is what cruising is all about.”
The docu- soap The Cruise was a broadcasting Titan in the late 1990s, pulling in audiences of 14 million.
Jane’s bubbly personality won over viewers but she says her subsequent rise to fame was far from a done deal.
“I believe in fate and a lot of things happened for me to be on that particular cruise at that time,” confides Jane, who was a Loose Women regular for years. “A lot was going on in
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It’s on a Friday night but it’s like bringing back one of the big Saturday night shows
my life that led to me being booked on that ship then. I’d gone back, it was my first job as a headliner and it just so happened that the BBC were filming.
“That doesn’t happen to people like me. But I actually thought I was a success before The Cruise. I loved doing my job and I loved to sing.”
Jane became an overnight platinum record- selling success, with millions also captivated by her relationship with the ship’s engineer Henrik Brixen.
A massive audience tuned in to see their dream Caribbean wedding. and has been in the business a long time.
“He understands that when I get home I’m very boring. I don’t want to do anything except sit on the sofa and watch a boxset like everybody else.”
Jane will be hitting the road in June for a 35- date nationwide 20th anniversary tour.
It includes July dates at Perth Concert Hall, His Majesty’s in Aberdeen and the Pavilion in Glasgow.
As “the only Yorkshire person in my family”, getting north of the border is always a treat.
But she admits early Scots dates were a shock to the system.
“It’s my favourite place in the world,” she says. “My mum had always said to me that if I could play G l a s g ow then I could play anywhere.
“I was so worried about whether it would go okay, but the warmth of the audience at the Royal Concert Hall was unbelievable.
“My mum had come up to meet all the family and it’s a night I will never forget. And my dad was a Fifer, so to play in Dunfermline on his side of the country was brilliant as well.”
It’s very likely that more of Jane’s friends will find her on the end of a phone asking her to join them for her new show. “I would love this to run and run,” she adds. “It’s such a feelgood show and it’s what I’ve worked for all my life.
“I’m so thrilled to have it. Going out and singing and getting everybody going is what I do. So, I’m hoping with all my heart that this is a success and, yes, I think there might be another series.”