She's the West End leading lady now performing the role her mum believes she was born to play. 

Carrie Hope Fletcher stars in the titular role in Calamity Jane, soon to arrive at Mayflower Theatre Southampton. 

There was just something about the gun-slinging, whip-cracking frontierswoman first immortalised on screen in 1953 by Doris Day that seemed right for the little sister of Tom, lead vocalist and guitarist in McFly and now involved in the new Paddington musical.

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Carrie said: "My mum had always said I would be a good Calamity Jane and through the entirety of my adult career she has always said she would love to see my playing the part.

"It's her dream role for me. So I looked into it and listened to the songs and watched the movie starring Doris Day and fell in love with it. Doris is such an icon. Though I did have to prepare my mum not to get her hopes up as things do fall through and you never know what might happen."

Fortunately, things did go according to plan, and she is now touring the country in the iconic role, which has also seen the likes of Carol Burnett, Barbara Windsor, Toyah Willcox, Jodie Prenger and even novelist Lynda La Plante all have a crack at tackling the fearless heroine.

Carrie is a worthy addition to that list, however. As one of theatre's brightest stars, she has appeared in some of the biggest productions of recent years, not least Les Misérables and the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella - a role she originated.

(Image: Mayflower Theatre) "I am relatively new to the whole world of Calamity Jane, but it’s a dream role in terms of her as a character.

"She is romantic lead, gets a great love story, has an amazing female friendship with Katie Brown and gets all the cracking, belty numbers.

"She ticks all of those boxes and it’s so wonderful she’s not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it. Parts like that are really rare and she has been great fun to get to know."

The musical features songs including The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away) and Secret Love and runs from June 3 to 7.

Tickets from mayflower.org.uk