I'M STILL STANDING

As he returns with a new album, Michael Ball discusses never being cool, calling time on Les Mis and why he refused to let an agonising injury keep him off the stage

- By Sue Crawford

IT’S AN OLD theatre adage that the show must go on. So when Michael Ball was told he needed an urgent hip replacement operation, he ignored the advice and insisted on continuing with his production, crutches and all.

Now, a year on and showing he is nothing but a trouper, the West End star will be back on stage — with a brand new left hip — for a UK tour to celebrate the release of his album Glow.

Michael had suffered hip pain for three years, but things came to a head during an eight-week tour of Les Misérables in Australia last year. “I went for physio and it wasn’t getting any better,” he recalls. “I had a cortisone injection, which helped, but after two days I was in agony and really limping.

“They took me for an MRI scan and the doctor said the ligament was completely ruptured and severed and I’d got bone-on-bone on the joint and that my hip had to be replaced. He said, ‘You must be in a really severe amount of pain’.

“I went, ‘Well, it’s nice to know I’m not just being a drama queen’!”

The doctor advised Michael to fly back to England for surgery, but he refused.

“I didn’t want to let people down,” he explains. “I decided I was just going to crack on with painkillers and try to get to the end of the tour.

“I had to have a crutch to get me to the side of the stage and I used the pain for my character. They cut the bits where I had to go up and down a barricade. I just got my head down and ploughed through it, but it was soul-destroying. I couldn’t enjoy anything really.”

When the tour ended, Michael returned home and had a full hip replacement. “It was an utter game-changer,” he reflects. “You realise that you’ve been in chronic pain getting worse for three years.”

Michael, 63, who combines his singing and musical theatre career with hosting the popular Love Songs show on Radio 2, says the health scare has prompted an overhaul of his life.