It was the summer of 1981 and Limahl was "feeling at a bit of a loose end". He had just left the latest in a succession of bands which he had been performing with in his home town of Wigan and was beginning to despair of ever finding the right combination of musicians -people whose personalities, tastes and ideas were similar to his own.

As a last hope, he put an advertisement in the music papers: Vocalist seeks group. One of the replies came from a quartet calling themselves Art Nouveau. When Limahl met them he knew almost immediately that there, at long last was a group of people who he could get on with creatively. They agreed on almost everything -except the group's name!

"We had endless arguments about that", Limahl recalls. "Eventually, Nick, the bassist came up with GaGagoogoo, a sort of nonsense name like the sounds that babies make, and then he changed it to Kajagoogoo. None of the rest of us liked the name. We thought it sounded silly. But, of course, this was the age of silly names. After all, there were bands calling themselves things like Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Spandau Ballet. Kajagoogoo was no sillier than any of them and, gradually, the rest of the group came around to liking the name, so it stuck."

If it hadn't been for meeting up with Nick, Steve, Stuart and Jez at that time, Limahl might well have decided to give up as a pop singer, and concentrate instead upon his acting ambitions.

Ever since childhood, Limahl has had a keen interest in the theatre and has performed in a variety of productions, ranging from the musicals 'Godspell' and 'Joesph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' to the thriller, 'Murder at the Vicarage'.

"I love acting", he says, "And it's been a mavellous training for what I'm doing at the moment. It's taught me so much about basic theatrecraft -after all, whether you are performing in a play or with a group, your main concern is still to entertain the audience.

"So many things can go wrong when you're acting in a play, and I think that's one of the true professional's greatest talent is to be able to carry on with a performance no matter what happens.

"I remember one scene in 'Murder at the Vicarage' when the 'phone rings and the vicar has to go over to it, answer it and say 'Hello Colonel'. It sounds easy, doesn't it. But what do you do if, one night, the person whose supposed to make the ringing sound of the 'phone forgets to do it? Well, that really did happen once, and the person who played the vicar carried it off so calmly. He just kept walking about the stage saying 'Oh dear, I'm sure the Colonel is going to ring soon', and all the time he was directing this into the wings where the sounds effects person was, who eventually got the message and pressed the bell sound. I was so impressed by the way that actor kept his head, though. I only hope I'll be able to stay that cool if and when things go wrong during Kajagoogoo concerts."

Limahls very first "Big Break" was when he played a small part in a pantomime, 'Aladdin' at the Grand Theatre, Swansea. "That was all very strange and unfamiliar to me", he says, "I'd never been to a panto' before in my entire life. I didn't have any idea of what it was all about. I was like finding out about avocado pears for the first time, before you even guessed that such things existed!

"Now I suppose you might think that my experience in a panto' has got nothing to do with my present career. But you'd be wrong, Because that panto' really taught me alot about how to deal with unresponsive audiences. I mean, sometimes we'd come out to do a matinee performance on a Monday afternoon and there'd be only about a hundred people in the audience, when the theatre itself could hold about five hundred.

"It was also during that time that I first learnt a bit about stage make-up and generally how to look good when you are in front of an audience."

In fact, Limahl puts a lot of effort into keeping in shape. He's only too keenly aware of the stresses and strains of a pop star's life -and he has no intention of becoming one of the wrecks of the business.

"I believe in looking after the body as best as I can", he says, "And therefore, I do as much exercise as I have time for. Every day I do sit-ups before going to bed, I go swimming twice a week and I go weight training at a gym three times a week.

"I don't think that people in general take enough care of their bodies. It's an unfortunate fact that our societies gone into smoking, alcohol, drugs and junk food, all of which are very bad for the body.

"I like to take a lot of care and trouble to make sure that I only eat good things. As you may know I'm a vegetarian, and I have been ever since the age of nineteen. I don't condemn other people who want to eat meat, but I personally prefer not to."

Limahl takes food very seriously and is himself quite an expert cook. One problem he does not have, though is the worry of becoming overweight, because he only weighs eight stone.

"I've always been quite slim", he says, "Maybe because I tend to be quite an energetic sort of person, as you can probably tell from the way I perform on stage.

"The one thing I never want to do is to become static, settled and content with what I happen to be doing at the moment. I'm the sort of person who likes to be continually on the move."

One of Limahl's greatest ambitions is to combine his musical talents with his theatrical abilities by writing and performing in a stage musical. "I've already got plenty of songs which could be used", he says, "And I'm quite serious that I will put on a musical one day. All I need now is to meet up with a good script-writer who can provide a strong plot.

"It would be mavellous to be able to act and sing in a show which I'd written. It would be such a wonderful challenge.

"I've always loved musicals of all sorts, even the more serious and heavyweight ones such as opera and operetta. Of course, I would never dream of trying to sing in anything like that, but I do enjoy going to see things as diverse as 'The Merry Widow' and 'Tosca'.

"The thing about seeing productions like that is that you can get so many musical ideas from them. Actually, I find that is true about the 'serious' theatre too. Last year I went to see a performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was a really magical evening, I just couldn't get it out of my head for months afterward. I'm sure that it's given me a lot of ideas which may inspire my own lyrics in some way".

"I would love to be able to put on a show of my own which would seem as magical to other people , and I would also like to be able to act in a really strong role.

"But that doesn't mean that I have any intention of going off on some other career and leaving Kajagoogoo. After all, the ultimate role for me has to be the lead singer in a successful band!"