IT’S August, the summer holidays are in full swing - and Ben Forster couldn’t be happier to discuss Christmas!

For Ben will be starring in arguably the biggest seasonal show of the year when he brings Elf the Musical to the Lowry for six weeks from the end of November.

This will be the first full season for the show outside London’s West End and Ben has effectively cornered the market playing Buddy.

He took on the role for the show’s inaugural run in Plymouth and Dublin and then moved with the show into the Dominion Theatre.

Elf is based on the hit movie starring Will Ferrell

“I love Buddy so much,” said Ben. “The show lives up to everything that you want it to. The movie is such a classic Christmas movie but the show has also got such good music and it is so well done.

“That’s why when they asked me to go back, even though I’d done it twice before, all I wanted to do was say yes,”

Elf takes the basic plot from the movie of a child who grows up in Santa’s workshop not realising he’s human and then embarking on a trip to find his real father in New York. The stage show features a brand new set of songs and dance routines which Ben believes add something extra special.

“It is close to the film is many ways,” he said. “But obviously we do break into song and dance which has been so amazingly done. The show’s full of big band Broadway songs and it sounds so classy."

Buddy marks a stark contrast from Ben's current show - he’s starring in Phantom of the Opera in the West End.

“It does feel like I’ve got a split personality,” he said. “Last time when I finished in Elf, a week later I was in Phantom and that was weird.

“At least this time I’ll have a break after Phantom to get my head round it and I do know what I’m going into.

“But I love the show. It allows me to behave like a child for six weeks. But it’s mental. The set is on split levels and I am running up and down all the time. I remember last time I was so fit by the end of the run but I needed a holiday.”

Ben was destined to be a star from a young age, winning a scholarship to the prestigious Italia Conti Academy when he was 16.

He was performing in the West End by the age of 20 and also embarked on a career as a singer songwriter.

But it was thanks to the TV show Superstar that his career really took off.

Ben won the show and as a result starred as Jesus in an arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012. Roles in the Rocky Horror and Evita then followed

“I’d had this varied career for 12 or 13 years after leaving college,” he said, “and I did think maybe it was time to move on to the next phase of my career whatever that might be.

“Then I saw the details for Superstar and thought I should give it one more push.

“Some actors can be quite snooty about a show like Superstar but it is all about trying to get a break. Through one show you can be seen by several million people, you can’t achieve that on the stage.

“You just use the opportunity to make your life better.”

For all his amazing success, Ben admits that in the theatre, you never stop learning.

“I feel lucky,” he said. “I have had such varied opportunities. I’ve done comedy in the Rocky Horror Show and Elf and tragedy in Jesus Christ Superstar and then got to do something so big and grand as Phantom. I learn from every job.

“When Andrew Lloyd Webber asked me to do Phantom it was after he had seen me in Evita and although I’m 36 now, it showed me that I can still keep learning and improving and developing new skills.

“It’s not a case of putting yourself in a box saying ‘this is what I do’ and then never changing.

“You hear so many people saying ‘I can’t go for that part, it’s not really me’. But it is, you just have to do it.”

For all his vast experience, Ben appreciates the working on Elf has been something special.

“We created the show really that first year,” he said. “When you do something like that and to have so much input is so unusual.

“As we were working on the show in Plymouth they were building the set and you’d see all the carpenters there building Santa’s sleigh and the icebergs so you’d see the whole thing developing every day.

“The show was taking shape around us. You’d walk down the corridor and see the seamstresses working on the costumes and the Elf boots. It is so are for a bunch of actors to get to see that. And the end result is amazing. It’s funny, heartwarming and really has that spirit of Christmas about it.”

Elf the Musical, the Lowry, Salford Quays, Saturday, November 25 to Sunday, January 7. Details from 0843 208 6005 or www.thelowry.com