The first time I encountered Stephen Sondheim was like everyone else: through snatches of old songs people performed in drama school, through 'Send in the Clowns,' which everyone knew. I wasn't aware at the time that he was the writing force behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy.'

Michael Ball

War Time Writing

Legally we have integration, social acceptance and diversity... but that doesn't mean... everybody is down with it.

Michael Ball

Legal Wit Very

I love the genre of early Hollywood. It gives you everything.

Michael Ball

Love You Wood

We've all sort of been there: It's coming on Christmas, all that preparation is going on, and you just want to escape. You don't want to buy into it. It's a time of year that brings up a lot of memories for people, and if you're missing somebody, it's hardest at this time of year.

Michael Ball

Time Christmas You

I'm not a big fan of Christmas, and I think there are a lot of people who feel a bit melancholy at the holiday.

Michael Ball

Christmas Who Think

You often take the mick out of the people you like best.

Michael Ball

You Ten Take

I'd rather take the mick out of myself before anyone else does. I know they'll do it, so I'd rather get in there first!

Michael Ball

Take T Self

When I was playing Marius in the inaugural production of 'Les Mis,' I contracted glandular fever which developed into a post-viral depression. I was 23 and I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Michael Ball

Yin Which Viral

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

Michael Ball

You Would Waste

I'd love to explore South America, but the security issues worry me.

Michael Ball

Love Worry T

I love my fans and they follow me everywhere - I recognise a lot of faces.

Michael Ball

Love Where Very

The one I really get on with is Princess Anne. Talk about calls a spade a shovel! And she's so clued-up. She's a patron of a number of charities. I've been involved in a couple and she's not just a name. She knows the research programmes that are going on. She really does her homework.

Michael Ball

Work Home Wit

I don't think you last very well in this business if you're trendy because trends come and go.

Michael Ball

Business You Well

I love doing characters that surprise people and showing what I am, which is an actor, first and foremost.

Michael Ball

Love Wing Win

I got involved in the Surrey Country youth theatre which led me to go to drama school where I realised that this was going to have to be my career, and I was really lucky to get big breaks early on.

Michael Ball

Car Youth You

I was very close to my grandmother, Agnes Parry. She was a typical matriarchal leader of the family and the community. People looked up to her and would always go to her for advice and help.

Michael Ball

Family Would Ways

I had Steven Spielberg on my radio show.

Michael Ball

T Steven Spielberg Steven

I have my family life and I think it's important to be able to shut the door and keep the door shut, and that keeps you grounded. You stay in reality.

Michael Ball

Life Family You

I love the idea of being on stage and people thinking they know who Michael Ball is, they've got an image and then not knowing and going: who's that? I mean, that's the best compliment ever.

Michael Ball

Men Love Age

I spent my 40th birthday on the stage of the Palladium in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.'

Michael Ball

Birthday Age Tag

Tapping therapy is absolutely brilliant. Stephen Gately from Boyzone, God rest his soul, told me about it. It's just a little tap that focuses the mind away from that wave of panic and adrenalin that shoots into your body.

Michael Ball

God Zone Your Body

I particularly like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Both writers have wit and imagination and the breadth of stories they tell coupled with extraordinary artwork make for fascinating reading.

Michael Ball

If you've got someone fighting your corner, someone who loves you and you love, and is also really, really clever, the battle is so much easier.

Michael Ball

I have a family who are desperately not interested in sharing their life with the world.

Michael Ball

I've got soft features, curly hair with blonde bits and dimples. People think of me as a singer, an entertainer, someone who's always there with a ready smile.

Michael Ball

What does annoy me is when critics use me to ridicule my audience. All the stuff about 'Tesco housewives' and 'the blue-rinse brigade.'

Michael Ball

I send a text every day to my partner Cath, saying 'I love you.'

Michael Ball

I don't have hobbies. Other than watching telly and walking my dogs, what I do is work. That's who I am.

Michael Ball

We're so stuck in our heads with social media that we don't get to meet people and go out to have a joint experience unless we go to a live event, like the theatre.

Michael Ball

Ah, 'Kismet,' or Carry On Camel, as we called it. I thought the show was shocking. It was the worst designed production ever but it's got a fantastic score. It's not an awfully good book though. You really have to work hard to eke out any laughs from that script.

Michael Ball

No-one has ever sung quite so beautifully as Karen Carpenter.

Michael Ball

For the millennium, we flew to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Pangkor Laut, a nearby island.

Michael Ball

When I was 19 and at drama school, a couple of friends and I decided to drive from Guildford through France, down to the heel of Italy and then take a ferry to Greece - in an MG Midget. On our second day, in France, we were in a very bad accident and wrote off the car so we had to go home. But we then flew out instead and went island hopping.

Michael Ball

Country songs are theatrical songs, they tell stories, and wear the hearts on their sleeves and they have great melodies.

Michael Ball

The first time I encountered Stephen Sondheim was like everyone else: through snatches of old songs people performed in drama school, through 'Send in the Clowns,' which everyone knew. I wasn't aware at the time that he was the writing force behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy.'

Michael Ball

Well, I try not to let people down in the work that I do or in how I conduct myself.

Michael Ball

You can't get down and dirty at the opera.

Michael Ball

You have to be on your game with a live audience because anything can change.

Michael Ball

That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.

Michael Ball

This was a seminal moment in my life - my dad took me to see the original production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' at the Palace Theatre in 1973. I thought it was just amazing, so powerful. The idea of using rock music to tell the story of Jesus was incredible.

Michael Ball

I understand the power of music, I understand the therapeutic nature of music, the sense of community that music engenders, so I totally understand why it still goes on, choirs come together as a focal point for a community.

Michael Ball

You can't ever make assumptions about a family tree.

Michael Ball

I tap my fingers and cheekbones before going on stage to calm down. But nerves are necessary; if you ever lose them, it's a bad sign.

Michael Ball

Bacharach has such a brilliant ear for melody and his music has a completely timeless feel to it; I thought it would be great to do a whole album of his music and to record with a full orchestra and big band which is something I hadn't done before.

Michael Ball

As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.

Michael Ball

You can generate a phenomenal relationship with an audience. It's very gratifying, a real privilege.

Michael Ball

I love a drink. But I've never, ever in my life been on a stage and done a performance with an alcoholic drink inside me. Never have, never would. I've seen people who do and invariably they're never as good as they think they are.

Michael Ball

I will always tour, it's hard work it really is hard work, but the feedback and the buzz you get back from it is worth it.

Michael Ball

Songs from the theatre can be taken and put on record in a commercial and contemporary way, be reinvented and become standout tracks on their own.

Michael Ball

I used to bottle things up.

Michael Ball

Try to leave people feeling better for having met you.

Michael Ball