The phantom of the cowshed!

Peter had already had a gruelling day, flying to Leeds-Bradford Airport from Southampton, where he is currently finishing a run of the Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacular The Phantom of the Opera.

He and his co-star Debbie Dutcher, who plays Christine, were at the theatre to launch the show in Bradford, performing a song each before a specially-invited audience.

The launch was held up because of fog affecting flights - but the Welsh singer took both the delay and the aural intervention of West Yorkshire's emergency services in his stride.

"Once you get into professional singing it doesn't matter if it's ten people or 10,000, the actual performance side of it is the same," he said.

"Sirens are one thing but we've had many different distractions. We've had people having heart attacks in the auditorium. You see people rushing around but you keep on singing. You do get distracted but you can't afford to let it affect you."

Peter should know. He doesn't pluck the figure of 10,000 out of thin air - that was the size of the audience at Cardiff Castle when he played the exhausting role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables in an open-air concert in 1998.

But it's as the Phantom (pictured) that he is now best known. He has played the role all over the world since first tackling it in 1990 and has twice been voted the World's Most Popular Phantom by the Phantom Appreciation Society.

Peter recalls that he found it tough when Cameron Mackintosh first asked him to take on the role.

"I had been doing Jean Valjean for about three and a half years in the Prince's Theatre in London," he said.

"Cameron came in and said 'Would you take over Phantom?'

"I had about four days between actually leaving Les Miserables and starting Phantom so we started rehearsing and I was getting nowhere with the role.

"I couldn't just get a grip on the core of the character. I had done Valjean for so long that it stuck with me."

Eventually, they decided to put Peter in the Phantom costume, complete with wigs and mask, and stood him in front of the mirror to see if that would help him get a feel for the character.

"As soon as they put the make-up and costume on, I immediately went straight to the character," he said.

Peter is a larger-than-life character who is likely to be a popular figure about town during the show's unprecedented 19-week stay in Bradford.

Music has been in his blood ever since his childhood on a farm in South Wales. He even used to sing to the cattle while he was mucking them out.

"The acoustics in this old 14th century granite cow shed meant it was like being in an echo chamber," said Peter.

"I'd be singing away at these cows. The farm was right in the centre of the village of Llanmaes and everybody would come along and listen to me and laugh at me.

"I would use the handle of the brush that I'd use to sweep up the unmentionables as a mike. I'd do rock 'n' roll, you name it."

The local church choir was another outlet for the young Peter.

"I was a member of a high church. I used to have to walk along swinging the blasted incense with a ruff on and everything. It was great fun, though," he said.

"I was always singing at school. I was singing from the age of about three of four. I'd be an embarrassment. I'd be singing while I was in the pushchair."

Peter had sporting ability as well as musical talent as a youngster. A rugby union winger, he played for Cardiff, Newport and the Welsh national team at youth level before deciding his future career was as a singer.

Not that he has always had it easy.

In his early days, he went to London to try to make it in the music business but found himself out of work and sleeping rough in Hyde Park.

"I did a bit of busking and got an old guitar for £2 even though it only had two strings and I couldn't play it," he said. "I used to go down to the underground and hit one chord and then sing the song."

Peter also roughed it when he last came to Bradford as part of the first national tour of Evita in 1987.

"I was touring with a 30ft caravan and I parked it at a pig farm. It was wonderful until the wind changed direction," he said.

This time he will be living in more luxurious surroundings, although again on a farm, with his wife, ten-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter in tow.

He may need all the time he can get with his family. The Phantom is a demanding part because it is so emotionally draining, according to Peter. He describes the character as "slightly insane, emotionally devastated and damaged and madly in love".

"It's a rare musical role. When people ask you about musicals they immediately presume that you're a singer first and foremost," said Peter.

"This is one of the rare roles where you're an actor who can sing a bit."

Simon Ashberry

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