By Jennifer Bradbury WHO would have believed it? Just last year she was a jobbing cabaret singer working on a cruise ship. Now Jane McDonald, the Yorkshire born lass who found fame, fortune and happiness since appearing on the BBC docu-soap The Cruise, is 33-1 with the bookies to top the Christmas charts. And that's up against competition that includes The Spice Girls and George Michael! Not bad at all for a 35-year-old, who had officially retired as a singer to focus her energies on cookery lessons, learning to speak Danish and working out with a personal trainer as she prepared herself for life, as a wife, with fiance Henrik Brixen.

But then she was asked to perform as top of the bill on the cruise ship, The Galaxy. Realising this could be her last opportunity to top the bill, she took a deep breath and accepted.

And the rest, as they say, is history. The Cruise proved so popular that after it finished its twice weekly airing, it had an audience of 12 million viewers and Jane McDonald emerged as a star.

She's had a number one album, which is still in the charts, and as if this fairy tale wasn't enough, Jane finally married her fiance Henrik this year.

And the BEN managed to grab a word with this larger than life personality during her hectic tour schedule, which includes a date at the Manchester Palace Theatre tonight.

"I'm really looking forward to coming back to Manchester. Before all this I used to play the clubs in the North-west and I used to love them," she says.

So what's the difference between this tour and the tours she did before she was famous?

"Well the venues are a bit bigger and better," she says modestly. She actually kicked off the tour with a gig at the London Palladium. "And it's nicer now because the audience are there to see me. Before I was there, because I was just there on the bill, along with the bingo."

Warming to her subject, she goes on: "When I sang before I'd have to compete with the bingo callers and people chatting at the bar. I thought I'd gone deaf on this tour because the audience was so quiet. It took a while to realise they were quiet because they were listening to me."

You get the impression from talking to Jane, that while she's obviously having a fantastic time, and enjoying her popularity, she can't quite believe what has happened to her.

"When I was asked to take part in the documentary I thought it would be shown at 11pm on BBC 2. Not on BBC 1 after Eastenders. Nobody thought it would be as popular as it was. And being honest I thought the fuss would die down after the show finished. But it's just snowballed. I'd have never believed this story if you'd told me it before.

"But the nice thing is that the public have sort of given birth to me. "

She says she was delighted but shocked when her debut album charted at number one. "It was a shock to me and the music industry," she admits, with disarming honesty.

This year has been a dream come true for Jane, the highlight of which, she says was getting hitched to Henrik. But next year looks set to be even better.

After this current tour, which ends later this month, she's off to the recording studios to lay down tracks for her second album, and she's also busy negotiating with a television company to develop her own show for screening next year. And then there's another tour in the Spring.

So has her meteoric rise to fame changed her? "Has it hell," she retorts, when I put the question to her. "You still put the kettle on yourself when you come to our house. And I still sew his shirts."

The fairytale that is Jane McDonald's life continues.

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