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Gareth Gates seeks a Beauty and the Beast co-star

Laura DevlinNorfolk
News imageWinnie Ngai/BBC A head and shoulders image of a man smiling at the camera in a TV news studio. He has short dark hair, a trimmed beard and is wearing a white top with a beige unzipped collared shirt over the top. Winnie Ngai/BBC
Gareth Gates had three number one singles while still in his late teens

Popstar Gareth Gates is searching for a co-star for a theatre's first pantomime of Beauty and the Beast.

The singer, who became famous on Pop Idol in 2002, is bringing his production of the classic fairy tale to Britannia Theatre in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in December.

Co-producer Gates will play the cursed prince and said he hoped to find his leading lady at "Finding Belle" auditions, which he is hosting in April.

"I got my big break on Pop Idol so I'd like to give that opportunity back, and we'd love to find a Belle within this region," he told BBC Look East.

The panto is the first to be held at the Britannia Pier venue and a "very exciting" first as panto co-producer for Gates, a veteran of 15 pantomimes.

"It's a feel-good show for the whole family and it really brings people together at Christmas time," he added.

News imagePA Media Two young men stand shoulder to shoulder smiling for a press launch, with a poster listing theatre dates behind them. The man on the left has black, spiky and gelled short hair and brown eyes and is wearing a black striped jacket and black shirt with white and grey spots. The man on the left has light coloured eyes, brown short spiky hair, a dark jacket and green tshirt. Each man has placed a hand on the other's shoulder PA Media
Gates was just 17 when he starred in Pop Idol with eventual winner, Will Young

The star got his first taste of show business in theatre when, aged eight, he found he had "a terrible stammer but I was able to sing", and has since performed on the West End and at theatres across the UK.

He said he liked to refer to his stammer, which attracted a lot of attention on Pop Idol, to help keep the condition in the spotlight, just as Jessie, a contestant on the Traitors, has talked about hers on the show.

"One of the things I am most proud about is, after Pop Idol, so many stammerers thanked me for heightening the awareness," he said.

"When I was a kid I didn't know anybody else who had a stammer; it was very lonely place, you feel very, very isolated, longing for somebody else to be out there like you.

"Shows like Traitors can reach people and say 'it's not all bad being different'," he added.

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