GREASE is the hot ticket in town next week. Only Wednesday matinee tickets and the most restricted of restricted-view seats for evening shows remain available for the West End hit's visit to the Grand Opera House, York, from May 7 to 12.

No wonder former London's Burning and Bugs star Steven Houghton is so enjoying playing the stellar, ultracool role of Danny Zuko in the nationwide tour, eight months into his 11-month run.

What's more, he was head-hunted for the part rather than having to audition. "I was just finishing playing Keith, the husband, in the Viv Nicholson musical story Spend! Spend! Spend! in the West End when I was offered the part, so I went from one nine-month run to doing this," says the Sheffield-born actor, singer and dancer.

"There are pros and cons to long runs; it is regular work and that can be good, but ideally you want a good balance of everything. If you get that, you're very lucky but that should be your aim."

A role such as the macho, tough Fifties high-school heart-throb Danny Zuko qualifies for the "very lucky" category but it was not luck that landed Houghton the role. "Hopefully they gave it to me because they thought I could do a good job!" he says.

"It's a really good role, in one of those shows where you're singing, you're dancing and you're acting. Danny's a star; he's loveable and he's not a fool, unlike the rest of gang, although he can act foolish, doing that adolescent walk.

"He's a tongue-in-cheek character, a slightly loose role, so you can play it differently each night depending on your mood. It's quite hard to do something twice exactly the same anyway; you want to change it to keep it fresh."

Like John Travolta before him, Steven Houghton is somewhat older than the part he is playing. "I think this'll probably be the last time I can get away with adolescence," says Steven, who is 30.

Not surprisingly, he is maintaining a strict fitness regime. "Grease means two and a half hours of constant moving for me: if I'm not on stage, I'm off for a costume change. So I'm doing gym routines three times a week, and I do enjoy that side of it. It's part of the job."

Fitness has always been important to Steven, who began his stage career as a dancer. "I was more into dancing than theatre, so I went to the Northern School of Contemporary Dance till I was 19, but after leaving college I was offered three opportunities: doing Cats in Hamburg, an apprenticeship with Ballet Rambert or a role in Children Of Eden in the West End," he recalls.

"I decided I didn't just want to dance, I wanted to sing and act as well, so I didn't take up the Ballet Rambert offer; I did Children Of Eden instead, and I've done loads of musicals since then."

Cats, Great Expectations, Kiss Me Kate, Moby Dick, The Hot Mikado are all on his CV, as is the original London production of Boublil and Schonberg's 16th century tale of mistaken identity, Martin Guerre.

"Looking back on it, it was a multi-million pound hash. No one knew what was going on; the lyrics were being changed everyday; they took themselves far too seriously. But at least it was a good experience working with Iain Glen."

For all his stage roles, Houghton is still billed as "From London's Burning". At the height of his success in the fire-fighting television series, he experienced the spin-off of chart hits: Wind Beneath My Wings made number three in winter 1997 and Truly charted at number 23 the following spring, and he had a gold-selling album too.

Houghton, however, has consigned his 15 minutes of pop fame to history. "I did those records off the back of my TV work in London's Burning and when I left that for Bugs, I didn't want to continue with the pop career and just be performing in Blackpool as the singing fireman two years later. There are lots more things to do than that, and I've done loads since Bugs."

In addition to performing in Spend! Spend! Spend! and Grease, he has sung on Marie Zamora's album in France (Marie is Alain Boublil's partner) and made a Robin Hood series for American television, filmed in Lithuania.

Now, he is signing up to a new manager, Jonathan Altaras, whose stable of clients includes Jude Law, Joan Collins and Ewan McGregor. "After Grease, I'm not going to tie myself to anything. I've been doing this career non-stop for a long time, and I'm going to step back and I'm going to wait for something really good, something I really want to do, on TV or stage."

Steven Houghton stars in Grease, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm, matinees 2.30pm, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: 01904 671818.