Mica Paris: 'I had everything, the money and the fame and I was like – is this it?'

“Looking good!” I blurt out, semi-involuntarily, as I wander into the bar area of Neon, just off Piccadilly, to find Mica Paris, being photographed right behind the door. 

“Work in progress, honey,” she smiles back: a phrase she will later also employ to describe an almost four-decade career that, as well as Eighties pop superstardom, has taken in radio presenting, screen acting (not least in EastEnders) and the West End stage. 

“It's so funny,” she says. “Last year someone sent me an article in Smash Hits from when I was 18. It was titled The Making of a Pop Star. And I'm still trying to be successful. This is the joke. That was ‘88. I'm still exploring.”

Tonight she will make her debut, downstairs at Neon, in Rehab: The Musical: a funny-serious show about a Nineties singer who gets papped