FROM the White House to the Yorkshire Dales; the Eurovision Song Contest to the West End stage; it is hard to know where to start when reviewing the career of Manchester-born Lyn Paul.
Yet the 58-year-old is adamant that the biggest drawback in her life has been a lack of ambition.
"The problem that I have had throughout my career is that I am not really very ambitious at all.
So I'm lucky that things have happened for me. I wish I could push more but I just can't," she confesses.
It's an admission that is difficult to reconcile with the facts.
A dancer and qualified dance teacher, singer, actress, soap star - the list of Paul's achievements appears endless, proving her to be that rare thing in showbusiness circles, a true all-rounder.
Next week, she appears at the Playhouse in her guise of musical theatre star, when she plays minister's wife Vi Moore in the Broadway adaptation of the popular 80s blockbuster movie Footloose.
Written by Dean Pitchford - who was responsible for the screenplay and lyrics for the film - and Walter Bobbie, Footloose The Musical tells the story of city boy Ren McCormack who moves from Chicago to Bomont, a rural backwater where dancing is banned.
All hell breaks out when Ren's feet start tapping and pretty soon he has the whole town on its feet dancing to a host of classic 80s hits.
"Vi Moore is a small part, but quite a powerful one and a nice role to play," says Paul. "It's something different for me to do, so I am enjoying it.
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Born Lynda Susan Belcher, on February 16, 1949, in Manchester, the young Paul had her heart set on a very different, though equally high-flying career to the one she has since carved for herself.
"As a child I wanted to be an air hostess, but I didn't pass my 11-Plus," she says.
Instead, Paul, who had started dancing at the age of three, formed an all-girl trio, the Chrys-Do-Lyns, with two friends from the Joan Lawrence Dancing School in Wythenshaw and started performing in working men's clubs throughout England, Scotland and Wales, before going to entertain in France, Germany and Italy.
Just 13 at the time, she was thrown out of school a year later for missing too many Monday morning classes - a result of working the club circuit at weekends - and found herself pursuing a full-time career in showbusiness.
"I was a bit old-fashioned even when I was young and wanted to be like the entertainers I looked up to. People like Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Peggy Lee and Julie London were my influences - and Petula Clark.
I was a great fan of Pet Clark."
At 21, now established as Lyn Paul, she joined the New Seekers having previously been a member of Manchester band the Nocturnes with New Seeker Eve Graham.
It was Graham who suggested Paul be invited to audition for the group when one of the original members quit.
As a Seeker, Paul scored a stream of hits singing lead vocals on their 1974 No 1 You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me and on Top Ten single I Get A Little Sentimental Over You.
She also sang lead vocals on the groups' final single, Sing Hallelujah, as well as sharing the singing duties on other favourites such as What Have They Done To My Song, Ma.
IN 1974, Paul went solo, a roller-coaster ride which, 20 years later, left her bankrupt when faced with a £26,000 tax bill.
By 1997, however, she was back, this time playing the role of Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers. Reinvented as a musical theatre star, she garnered rave reviews for her performance and stayed with the show for several years, before being invited to play the role of Josie in Boy George's musical Taboo, when it opened at The Venue in London.
"I had always wanted to act, but music had been my life, so it had never occurred to me.
It was only when someone said I should go for that role - Mrs Johnstone is a very northern, gritty role and I'm a northern woman, so it was something I could relate to - that I talked to my mum about it and she said, 'Well, write to the show's producer Bill Kenwright'.
"So I actually wrote to him and asked him for the role. He replied by return post and two weeks later I was standing on a stage in the West End starting rehearsals.
I can't tell you how nerve-wracking that was. I suddenly thought, 'How stupid. I don't even know if I can do this'.
Mrs Johnstone was the first time that I had done any musical theatre. I wish now that I had started acting years ago."
Simultaneously, Paul was also developing her TV career, appearing in the BBC dramas Doctors and In Deep, and as Freda Danby in the popular ITV soap Emmerdale.
You might, then, imagine that it would be difficult for the star to pick out one particular year in her long career as particularly special.
If she did, however, the chances are that it would be either 1970, the year she sang I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony) for an American President; or 1972, the year she represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest from the stage of Edinburgh's Usher Hall, coming second with Beg Steal Or Borrow.
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing has sold more than 20 million copies, and was adopted by the Cold War generation as a call for international understanding.
"It was certainly an anthem for us because when we sang that song audiences would get up on their chairs and sway, holding Coke bottles in the air," remembers Paul.
"It was a nice song, with a strong melody and then everybody did want peace. Everybody still wants peace and that song would stand up now.
"When we appeared at the White House we got to shake hands with President Nixon, but at the time I was only 21 and 30 years ago, 21 was very young, not like being a 21-year-old these days. So I didn't really enjoy it as much as I should have. I don't think any of us did.
I don't think we realised quite what a gift we had been given, all the travelling and the places we visited. I personally didn't take advantage of it all. It's only now when I look back that I think my God, you did do some amazing things.
Why on earth didn't you enjoy it more?'"
Beg, Steal Or Borrow on the other hand was just a catchy pop song. And as Paul prepares to return to the Capital, it brings back memories of how, 35 years ago, she was mobbed as the New Seekers set off for the Usher Hall.
SHE reveals: "The Eurovision Song Contest was huge in the 70s. One artist sang all the 12 songs from which the year's entry was chosen, so we were on the Cliff Richard Show for 13 weeks running.
"The first week in the studio we were relative unknowns, but we built a huge fanbase from being on that show.
"Staying at the Caledonian Hotel before the Contest was amazing. Thousands of fans arrived to wish us well and we made the big mistake of walking over to shake hands with some of them.
"The next thing I knew we were on the floor and people were trying to get us up.
It was horrendous but quite exciting. They got us back inside but the fans broke the swings doors of the Caledonian trying to get to us. In the end they had to take us out through the hotel's kitchens.
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Thankfully, when Lyn Paul appears at the Playhouse next week, it's likely to be a more sedate affair.
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