IF YOU missed him at The Mayflower, there's another chance to see Darren Day in Carousel when it arrives in Bournemouth next week.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical masterpiece, which opens for a five-night run at the Pavilion theatre on Tuesday, November 14, finds Day playing swaggering carnival barker Billy Bigelow.

It's a classic role, with Billy meeting the girl of his dreams, falling in love, getting married, but then dying as the robbery he pulls in a desperate attempt to provide for his wife and unborn child goes tragically wrong.

It doesn't end there, of course, for Billy is allowed to return to the living to do one good deed.

On the road for a gruelling nine months, it is the latest of a string of major shows which have helped establish Day as one of the biggest names to emerge in musical theatre in the past decade.

Amazingly, he was playing Butlins when he was first chosen for the show that would change his life, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Since then, he has starred in major productions like Summer Holiday, Grease and the New Rocky Horror Show and is now being considered for a new version of Billy Liar.

"I'm a lucky boy," he says. "The past seven-and-a-half or eight years have been extraordinary for me."

His co-star in Carousel is Sam Kane, best remembered as Brookside's philandering hairdresser Peter Phelan.

Choreography for the show has been created by Wayne Sleep, who has, of course, had a distinguished career in both classical ballet and popular theatre. It is the first time that Sleep, once described by Royal Ballet founder Dame Ninette de Valois as "the greatest virtuoso dancer the Royal Ballet has ever produced," has choreographed an entire musical.

Call the Pavilion box office on 01202 456400.