SIMON Williams has discovered the joys of being a woman - you smile more and people are polite to you, apparently.

The TV heartthrob is coming to Malvern at the end of May with his daughter Amy and Stephanie Beacham to star in a comedy he has written called Nobody's Perfect.

It tells the story of author Leonard whose book is rejected by Harriet, the publisher at a feminist publishing house where the motto is For Women by Women, because he is "clearly not a woman".

Increasingly desperate, Leonard pretends to be his non-existent old Auntie Myrtle - but unfortunately doesn't let the rest of his family (teenage daughter Dee Dee and Grandpa Gus) in on the secret.

Mr Williams said he has found it difficult playing the lead in a play he wrote himself.

"I never wanted to be in it. I wanted someone like Rowan Atkinson, Martin Clunes or Nicholas Lyndhurst, all of whom would have been perfect, but the producers said go with it and I'm enjoying it."

But whether he is enjoying being a woman for 15 minutes is a moot point.

"How do you keep your faces so smooth?" he exclaimed with some feeling.

"The best thing I suppose is that when I come out of the dressing room, everyone backstage is politer and sweeter, even though they know perfectly well it's me, it's really strange.

"I remember playing a part in a wheelchair and everyone shouted at me, people just behave differently."

But the make-up, he said was a bit of a problem, especially the eyelashes, and he also said he felt a definite vulnerability wearing a skirt.

For the first time he is acting in a play with his daughter, Amy who, funnily enough, plays his daughter.

He said it's lovely and very natural and Amy said she felt the same, although she said it was "very worrying" that he was so good at playing a woman.

"He looks so beautiful!" she said.

Although the fifth generation in her family to turn to acting, she said she still gets scathing, nepotistic comments.

"I'm very proud to be in a play with my father but I do get the best and the worst from being his daughter," she said.

Nobody's Perfect is coming to Malvern Theatres on Monday, May 28 and will continue until Saturday, June 2.

Tickets, priced from £10 to £18, are available from the box office on 01684 892277.