Wet Wet Wet's Marti Pellow on his love for pantomime villains and Birmingham

• Hannah Bechelet sits down with Wet Wet Wet's Marti Pellow to chat all things Panto, Christmas and Birmingham

Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow returns to panto in Birmingham this year, seven years after playing Abanazar in Aladdin back in 2015.

In the Hippodrome's performance of Dick Whittington Marti Pellow will play The Ratman, panto favourite Matt Slack will play Dick Whittington, TV Doctor and presenter Dr Ranj will be Spirit of the Bells and musical sensation Suzanne Shaw will play Alice.

The UK's biggest regional pantomime will feature sets and costumes from The London Palladium.

And as well as performing, Marti, along with his song-writing partner and musical director Grant Mitchell, have written several songs for this year's pantomime.

Birmingham Hippodrome artistic director and chief executive officer, Jon Gilchrist, said: "We are delighted to have such an amazing cast on board for Dick Whittington, including the return of Hippodrome favourites Marti, Matt, Suzanne, Doreen and Andrew along with Dr Ranj who will make his Birmingham panto debut.

Speaking to Hannah Bechelet Marti said he will enjoy the Christmas markets as well as sampling some of the local restaurants.

"This is the beauty of it you know, I do two shows a day but when I'm not on stage I'll be walking about" he said, "I love a market me!"