A SWANLEY writer is  playing actor, producer and co-scriptwriter for an irreverent but “affectionate” musical charting the alternative life of veteran journalist Michael Buerk.

Buerk! The Newsical is the brainchild of Greg Jameson and Tom Bailey and was co-birthed under alcohol, “fevered imaginations”, and a deep-rooted nostalgia for the 1980s.

The pair re-imagine the BBC’s 80s news icon embroiled in a love-triangle with fellow broadcaster Moira Stewart and the fictionally-scheming weather forecaster Ian McCaskill.

Greg Jameson, who plays the broadcasting hero, says he was tone-deaf before the musical and would rather have trod the boards naked than sung to a live audience.

But the 34-year-old, who lives with his partner off High Street, Swanley, says he conquered his fear by training in Sidcup’s “hotbed of creativity”.

Mr Jameson told News Shopper: “It came out of the fevered imagination of me and my co-writer Tom when we were younger and more energetic in our twenties – alcohol had a lot to do with it.

"When we first met we created a fantasy world. The 80s is a nostalgic time for us as we were children then. Buerk was one [hero] we decided to pick on.”

It is not the first time the actor has dressed up as Buerk – who has been invited to the premiere – in his “heroic” and somewhat “dim-witted” fantasy rendition of the newsreader.

“My weird obsession with Buerk goes a long way back. There is a photograph of me as a teenager wearing a friend’s sheepskin jacket pretending to be Michael.

“I have read his autobiography – he is a good journalist and I have enormous respect for him but our creation is a complete fantasy.

"I don’t remember this great sexual chemistry between them [Moira and Michael].

“I think he comes across well. He is heroic and noble. A bit more dim-witted than in reality but hopefully he wouldn’t be offended. It is affectionate.”

The writer-cum-actor-cum-producer moved to Swanley two years ago having house-hopped around Bromley – where the Churchill Theatre remains one of his favourite haunts –including Mottingham and St Mary Cray.

The theatre reviewer and owner of two ferrets Olive and Cocoa praises Sidcup where he finished acting training at Rose Bruford College in 2008 and later learnt to sing.

“I was tone deaf and thought – I really should learn to sing for the musical.

“It was one of my fears – I would much rather have gone on stage naked. “My singing teacher got me through all of that.

“Sidcup is a very creative place – you have got Rose Bruford, Bird College, another couple in that neck of the woods.

“It is certainly a hotbed of creativity – I met a lot of people through acting and the singing so I owe a lot to the education I got there.”

Buerk! The Newsical makes its London debut at Network Theatre next month after two sold-out performances at Seven Arts in Leeds in 2011.

Mr Jameson says his offbeat humour is only beaten by co-writer Tom and the two’s next venture will be a “sex comedy farce” about Dr Who.

The 90-minute show will run at Network Theatre, Lower Road, Waterloo from May 2nd to May 4 at 7.30pm.

Tickets cost £10 and are available at ticketsource.co.uk/buerkthenewsical/ For more information visit buerkthenewsical.com