Actor Lee Mead has ditched the scrubs of Casualty to take the driver’s seat in the musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at New Wimbledon Theatre.

Lee - who has graced the West End in shows such as Wicked, Legally Blonde and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat - believes this new role as Caractacus Potts could be his biggest in 15 years but said it is taking a toll on his body.

He told us: “It has been the hardest role I have played.”

 “I come home exhausted every night as I am on stage pretty much the whole show, but I come off really happy and feeling like I want to do it again which I get to do eight times a week.

“I have lost almost a stone in weight already in two weeks so I have been told by my trainer and the company to eat as much carbs and food as possible because I’m just constantly losing the weight.”

But he has no regrets in filling the checked corduroys of Potts, saying it wasn’t a hard decision to accept the part.

He said: “I remember being a young kid myself, five, six years old watching it every year and when my agent called me saying they wanted to offer me a part in Chitty, I said yes straight away, it was three seconds or something.

“It has always just been there in my childhood, like Mary Poppins, It is simply a classic and to play the lead of such a classic show, I can’t see myself playing a bigger role than this in a musical, it is a real privilege.”

But the real star of the show is the car itself and Lee explained that using 3-D images on the stage, which the original didn’t have, the audience gets more of a sense that it is going on a journey when it flies.

He said: “It’s so much fun, it is like tapping back into your childhood. I remember when I looked at the car for the first time and, to be honest, every night it is like I’m a kid again and I am actually driving Chitty, It’s great.”

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is at New Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon, from July 20 to 30. Tickets cost from £20. Go to atgtickets.com/wimbledon

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