DENISE Nolan is looking forward to the Woking leg of the Blood Brothers tour, if only for the New Victoria's air conditioning.

Speaking to The Herald on her mobile phone while shopping in Canterbury, where the show was touring this week, Denise laughed: "I've told everyone on the tour they'll love Woking because it's the only place on the tour with air conditioning and they'll all keep really cool. The audiences are also great.

"Blood Brothers is very much a winter show. We all have to wear thick coats.

"The only trouble is the theatre's right in the middle of the shopping centre, which is terrible for a woman!"

Denise will be playing the lead role of Mrs Johnstone in Willy Russell's hugely successful musical tale of kinship and class in 1980s Liverpool.

A single mother of seven, Mrs Johnstone cannot afford to keep the twins she is expecting and decides to give one of them to a wealthy woman who cannot have children.

The two boys' lives interweave but for years they do not know they are brothers.

Denise, who has been touring with this production since February, said it was typical to receive standing ovations and hugs from tearful members of the audience.

"I think it's because it's not a frothy musical. Ninety per cent of people want to see it again. I love frothy musicals but this is deeper and runs the whole gamut of emotions from laughter to pain. Ninety per cent of the time we get standing ovations, particularly up north and in the Midlands, and people come up to you in tears saying 'thank you for giving me such pleasure' which always makes me laugh.

"The play's very well written and is full of the sort of things kids say, so as a result is very funny and the same actors play the boys from the age of seven to 22."

Denise and two of her Nolan Sisters have played the part. Bernie, now in The Bill, toured with the show and Linda is currently in a West End production.

In the late 1970s, Denise, who is the second eldest of the girls, took the brave decision to leave the Nolan Sisters just as they looked primed for success and it really does seem as though the old story of "artistic differences" was to blame.

"They were going into the pop field. We only had a minor hit with me but after I left they had eight hit records. I don't know whether that was anything to do with me!" she laughs.

"I wanted to be a proper singer, not a pop singer and I was into big band music. I also didn't want to wear those sort of outfits. I left before they had the hits because I thought it would be harder to leave afterwards."

The Singing Nolans, as they were then called, first comprised not only the sisters, but brothers and mum and dad. They regularly performed at working men's clubs and were spotted by an impresario in the Irish family's adopted home town of Blackpool. It was suggested the girls lose mum and dad and their brothers, and the Nolan Sisters were born.

Before she left the group, Denise had enjoyed a personal highlight when she and her sisters supported Frank Sinatra on his 1975 tour of Europe.

"He was my absolute idol and every time he came near us I became very tongue-tied," Denise laughs modestly.

"He was very kind. He laid on a white limousine for us because he said he didn't want us travelling with the rest of the band and he would always come up and ask how the show had gone.

"He would fly in from Switzerland and fly back again immediately after he left the stage."

Denise still keeps in touch with her sisters and she and partner cum-musical-director-cum-manager Tom Anderson even share a house with Linda in West Drayton.

Denise's vocal range has made her a popular choice with producers and stars such as Gladys Knight, Gene Pitney and Cliff Richard, all of whom she has worked with on numerous occasions.

And in the jazz world she has performed a series of concerts with the BBC Radio Big Band and made appearances with Buddy Greco at Ronnie Scott's.

Having started singing professionally at the age of 11, Denise has notched up 40 years in showbiz, so what keeps her going?

"That's a tough question. I suppose it's partly financial, but I suppose I just love singing. It's my first love and I could never stop. That and the applause you get."

l Blood Brothers is at The New Victoria Theatre, Woking, from July 14-16.