JOHN'S SET FOR CHART ATTACK

AFTER winning fans as a leading man in musicals, TV and on film, John Barrowman is now hoping to be No1 in the pop charts after signing a four-album record deal with Sony.
And the handsome Scot - best known as dandy hero Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and its spin-off Torchwood - is even more excitable than usual as he reveals he's also planning to parade his music on a UK tour.
Making music is no change for the talented 40-year-old.
He has already recorded albums while leading West End productions of Miss Saigon, Phantom Of The Opera and Sunset Boulevard.
He helped shape new West End singers as a judge on BBC talent shows How DoYou Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do.
And John was even seen duetting with Hollywood star Kevin Kline in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely.
But this is the first time he will get to record pop hits.
John said: "I will do covers of tracks I really like - some things that my fans have asked me to sing.
"It will be a very eclectic mix of music that is like me as a person ... musical theatre, pop and even some pop-country. It will be neat.
"When I sat with Sony, I said, 'I'm not like any other, not just a musician. I'm not someone who writes my own music, so let me develop this.'"
Now John would love to take his music on the road - acting permitting.
But he laughs off any idea of him as a rowdy rocker.
He laughed: "I'm not one of those people who like to go out and get hammered. I'm a little older now - and wiser."
And much too busy, if his current schedule is anything to go by.
Although he is filming the second series of Torchwood until November, John will take time off to guest host Channel 4's Friday Night Project next week. And he will host a pilot for a possible new BBC One Saturday night quiz show called The Kids Are All Right.
As if all that wasn't enough, John is being followed by his sister who is writing his biography, Anything Goes, which is due out next spring.
But, despite being the man of the hour, John admits he was surprised when a publisher approached him.
He said: "I don't think I'm that old yet to be penning such a thing.
"But my sister has been following me for the last seven weeks - I dictate into an iPod and she puts it onto the page.
"It's my stories of my career, my trials, my tribulations, exciting things that have happened to me, my family situations, all sorts of things.
"Luckily I'm from a very tight-knit family and my sister knows everything about me, so I have no problem telling her all this stuff.
"There have been a couple of times - well, actually five - when she's gone, 'Eww, I don't want to know,' but I think she's slightly got over that and I think it will be an interesting read."
JOHN has taken a long time to reach his current status as one of Britain's biggest and brightest all-round talents.
Born in Mount Vernon, Glasgow, his dad's job with Lanarkshire machinery firm Caterpillar moved the family across the Atlantic to Illinois when he was nine.
The youngster moved back in 1990, but his Scots accent had gone - almost.
John laughed: "When I'm with my family I still speak Scottish.
"The weird thing is with Doctor Who star David Tennant, when we are off-set we speak Scottish but when we go on-set he's English and I'm American. It's like being bilingual. We call it bi-dialectical. There is a lot of "bi" in me."
He smiles. John is open and proud about his homosexuality - and that of his "omnisexual" TV alter-ego Jack, who'll pursue any man, woman or alien.
John - voted Stonewall's Entertainer Of The Year in 2006 - has been with his architect partner Scott Gill for 16 years - and they wed last year.
He said: "I am proud to be gay. I'm a gay man, I have no issue with it or for people who do." He beamed: "I was signing autographs and a little boy came up to me with his father.
"The father said, 'Do you want Captain Jack's autograph?' and the little boy said, 'Oh yes, Daddy.
I don't care if he does like boys or girls, he's my hero.' Whether that's because of what I'm doing or because of what the show is doing, I don't know.
"But I said to the dad, 'Either you are an amazing father or you have a very special young boy there.'
"Because he didn't care. It is adults who have hang-ups. Kids don't."
John continued his fight against stereotypes by launching the RAF International Tattoo in June.
He said: "I was representing them because of Captain Jack being in the RAF.
"But mainly I agreed because the RAF in Britain are the only part of the military that openly accepts gay men and women.
"I really wanted to represent them.
"They took me up in this Hawker Hunter fighter jet and flew me around upside down, you name it.
"I am proud to say I puked, got my oxygen mask back on in time to do another loop then threw up again.
"It was like a fantasy. I was dressed in the Top Gun gear and everything."
Back on the ground, John's castmates when Torchwood airs in January will be The Doctor's ex-companion Martha, played by Freema Agyeman, and James Marsters, who played Spike in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
John laughed: "For all those sci-fi fans out there, it is going to be a scene of extreme excitement."
"I told Sony, 'I'm not like any other. I'm not just a musician, I'm not someone who writes my own music. So just let me develop this'"