AS Claire Sweeney played the Girl looking for love in all the wrong places in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tell Me On A Sunday, she was experiencing a similar world of disastrous dates and terrible men.

“I was telling my friends and we started writing the stories down,” she says from Malvern, where her new co-written touring show Sex In Suburbia is appearing.

“I was commissioned to write a show with my friend Mandy Muden – it took two years and lots of rewrites, but we had so much material from my experiences and my friends.”

Set during a live radio show Sex In Suburbia stars Sweeney playing herself, alongside Lindzi Germain as the talk show DJ and Carl Patrick as her producer.

This touring show is a slight departure from the original beast which premiered at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre last year – especially in terms of Sweeney’s role.

“In the original show I was playing Cheryl, who had a lot of disasters and just wanted to settle down and have a baby,” says Sweeney. “That was my story.

“Now I’m performing with a baby in the dressing room [Jaxon, born in October 2014]. Those bits are like looking back into my past, and now I do bits later on as myself, having had a baby.

“It was the producers who decided I should play myself rather than someone else in the radio studio. There are touches of my personal story about having a baby and my pregnancy, some of the funny things that have happened to me.”

Indeed Jaxon is on the road with her – and can be heard griping in the background during part of the interview.

“When I was doing panto this Christmas Jaxon was getting breastfed by a genie,” she laughs. “He loves anything sparkly and animated. He’s very stimulated – during the panto he had lots of people with make-up on in his face. When I finished the run and took him for a walk around Costco he was bored!”

The show also features other collected stories ranging from mickey takes on Ann Summers parties to the tale of a woman who came home to find her husband in a dress – only to discover she preferred hanging out with his more feminine side.

There are even stories from the male point of view – both gay and straight – with one memorable scene where a wife tries to seduce her husband while he struggles to watch the football.

“We thought it was a show for a female audience,” admits Sweeney, who describes the overall show as the British housewives’ take on Sex In The City.

“What surprised me was women were bringing their husbands, who would then come back with their pals. It has a broad appeal.”

The stories are interspersed with songs – with Sweeney taking inspiration from West End musical Priscilla Queen Of The Desert.

“I wanted that feeling you get with all the great songs,” she says. “I’ve chosen Finally It’s Happening To Me, I Will Survive, I’m Every Woman, I’m So Excited, and Somebody Else’s Guy which was always my favourite song, propelling me back to my teenage years.”

There’s a chance for the audience to contribute too, as the floor is opened up to real-life stories.

“In King’s Lynn there were very raunchy stories,” remembers Sweeney. “It really surprised me!

“On the first night of the tour [in Wimbledon] there was a guy who proposed to his girlfriend live on stage – that was emotional.”

As for the future Sweeney hopes the show will change and evolve over time – but at present she is looking forward to two new projects once the tour is over. Later this year she will star in musical Hairspray, but before then she is looking forward to taking on a radio show of her own.

“It’s on Sunday afternoon between 3pm and 4pm, and I will be playing showtunes,” she says of her new slot on Magic FM. “It’s my dream job, talking about musicals and interviewing people from the West End.”

Sex In Suburbia

Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Sunday, March 15

Starts 7.30pm, tickets from £19. Call 08448 717650.