Lesley Garrett speaks ahead of Telford show

Lesley Garrett is a domestic goddess who's juggling the needs of six young adults who've set up camp in her home with the work involved in a new theatre show.

The best-selling opera star – famously and accurately labelled 'a down-to-earth Northerner' – is back on the road. Her new production, An Audience with Lesley Garrett, is visiting provincial theatres and reaches Telford's Oakengates Theatre @ The Place on Tuesday.

But while she's preparing songs, stories and anecdotes for that, she's having to contend with the return of her brood: children Jeremy and Chloe, plus their partners and their partners' siblings.

"There's six young people living at home at the moment," she says. "I love it. Jeremy is a computer scientist and Chloe is a psychologist but she's trying to make her way in the theatre. She wants to direct at The Crucible, in Sheffield. They're there with their girlfriends and boyfriends – and their siblings."

Hitting the road must be the perfect way to relax. Garrett laughs. "Well, I'm having a great time going round the country with my one-woman show. I talk about my humble beginnings where I grew up and how I got from where I started to where I am now. I remember the fascinating people and exciting adventures and I intersperse that with the music that's really, really mattered to me along the way.

"There's audience participation and we have opportunities to ask questions or vote for a song they like.

"I'm in conversation with a radio interviewer and we vary the programme from night to night. We have a wonderful pianist, a couple of drinks: it's very relaxed and intimate."

She's not yet been to Telford and is looking forward to her first visit. Normally, she'd be along the M54 and M6, at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. "Well, that's the thing with this tour. We wanted to go to smaller theatres because I love these intimate evenings.

"I've always really enjoyed communicating through music, that's why I'm a performer. I love to see the audience having a wonderful time and the effect the music has. Being in an intimate space gives me that opportunity. There's often tears and laughter."

Garrett has spent her life breaking down the barriers between artists and audiences. "Singers are perfectly normal people who happen to have a gift and we must share that," she says. Though there have been international tours and best-selling records, collaborations with A-List stars and appearances on TV, arguably her biggest achievement has been in taking opera to the masses, just as Brummy violinist Nigel Kennedy took classical music to the common man.

"That's been a deliberate intention. When I was growing up in south Yorkshire, we all sang opera around the piano. We just loved it. We didn't see it as elitist. We didn't know about class distinctions until I got to London. But I set about trying to change that because I felt it was wrong. The composers who wrote those great operas wanted everyone to hear them. So I've spent my life making opera as accessible to everyone by doing it on TV or bringing subtitles, by singing in English or reducing ticket prices.

"Opera is about drama that happens to be set to music. Opera and film are closely related because good dramas are underscored by music."

By Andy Richardson