GOODNESS, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire! The cast of That'll Be the Day (TBTD) are often billed as the hottest show in town but when their theatre dressing room went up in flames this week it was not the blaze of glory that they welcome.

In fact as the show rolls into Bournemouth pavilion Theatre tonight for their 12th consecutive summer season they are breathing a collective sigh of relief that they are all still alive.

The drama unfolded at Eastbourne's Congress Theatre on Sunday night around 20 minutes into the sold out performance when comic lynch pin of the show Gary Anderson - dressed as Ken Dodd at the time, went down to his dressing room to change.

He opened the dressing room door to see his curtains on fire and flames were spreading to the carpet.He initially tried to put it out with his bare hands before reaching for his tickling stick as the room filled with thick black smoke.

Attempting to clear the smoke he opened the window which, says the show's director and fellow cast member Trevor Payne, "caused the whole thing to ignite."

Costume changes are mighty quick in this show and as Gary frantically shouted out "help, help!" it transpires cast member Rebel Dean presumed he had got stuck in his Ken Dodd costume and needed assistance with changing into Inspector Clouseau!

Luckily Rebel arrived at the dressing room, found the fire extinguisher and put the blaze out. But the ordeal was far from over for the flames activated the sprinklers in the dressing room ceiling to go off.

Trevor said: "It was like a full blown power shower coming down - like Niagara Falls all over Gary and all over the costumes hanging up. We couldn't get back in the dressing room as it was like a Monsoon and we couldn't find anyone to turn off the sprinkler - that had to be done by the fire brigade when they arrived."

After a 30-minute break the show went back on with plenty of improvisation using what costumes were available.

Gary went back on wringing wet after his ordeal, squeezing water out on stage and managed to salvage an Andy Pandy suit from the bottom of a bag to save the day.

Spookily this was the third consecutive year the fire alarms had gone off when TBTD played there and the theatre had to be evacuated. The last two years had been false alarms but Trevor said: "At least we had already learnt a super slick fire drill!"

On their last visit in March with the theatre almost closed off by deep snow they had struggled to get their 40 foot truck up a backstage ramp and it crashed causing thousands of pounds of damage. "We definitely think the place is jinxed," said Trevor and the cause of the fire remains a mystery.