I am a huge supporter of Susan Boyle and admire what she has achieved; she has handled the extraordinary situation of being catapulted to worldwide stardom with tremendous strength, charm and dignity and I thoroughly enjoyed working with her on the ITV special we recorded together only last month.

I have always said it’s very hard for someone to be fast-tracked to stardom without any prior experience – I know this as it happened to me when ‘Evita’ opened and I found it extremely difficult in the beginning; today, of course, it’s much harder with the phenomenon of the internet – Facebook, YouTube etc – it seems it only takes minutes for fame to spread around the world – and that’s why I used the word ‘virus’! I wasn’t referring to Susan herself; I was referring to the speed of her fame spreading as fast as a worldwide viral marketing campaign.”