Jonathan Wilkes is the Wedding Singer

IF Jonathan Wilkes had booked a wedding singer to perform at his marriage to long-term love Nikki Wheeler in 2004, his choice would have been – no, not Robbie Williams, but Michael Buble singing Moondance.

And just for the record, it was Wilkes who introduced the name of his best friend – and best man – into the conversation.

We are sitting in the Varieties Bar of Manchester's Palace Theatre, the morning after the press night of The Wedding Singer, a new musical based on the 1998 Adam Sandler film of the same name. In the stage version, Wilkes plays Robbie Love, a 1980s wannabe rock star, available for weddings, funerals and barmitsvahs – but mostly weddings.

It's the sixth musical the 29-year-old has starred in, but before turning our attention to the show, which opens at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Monday, Wilkes' face breaks into a big boyish grin as he recalls his own wedding.

"Here's a funny story," the Stoke-born entertainer promises, "So, we got married in Rob's back garden in LA, and the track that Nikki was to come down to was Luther Vandross singing Here and Now. But my friend Lee, whose one job was to press the play button to start that song, hit the wrong button and played Janet Jackson's The Best Things In Life Are Free which starts, 'ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?' I'm stood there thinking, 'What the hell?'"

That said, bigger disasters befall Wilkes' character in The Wedding Singer. Robbie Love is the lead singer with Simply Wed, a three-piece band with a residency at the Touch of Class Catering and Banquet Hall, Ridgefield, New Jersey, New York.

A cheeky chappy, Love is the life and soul of the party and everyone's favourite wedding singer until he gets jilted at the altar – after which he makes every wedding he performs at as miserable as his own.

Enter Julia, a waitress who soon wins his heart. There's just one problem, she's already engaged to be married to someone else. Can Love pull off the performance of his life to win the girl of his dreams?

A huge hit when it opened on Broadway, the UK production of The Wedding Singer boasts an original score by Matthew Sklar and direction and choreography by Karen Bruce who, while keeping the Stateside setting, has given the tale a far more British feel.

"I believe this musical caters more for British audiences than American, we have Britified it a bit," agrees Wilkes, "It has everything British audiences like. It's the underdog's story. Adam Sandler has this ability in everything he does to play the same character – the down-trodden underdog who makes good at the end as everybody falls in love with him. That's a great British story.

"It's not Chekhov, it's never going to win awards for having an amazing plot line, it's just a lovely simple love story done around the music of the 80s."

However, don't expect to hear the hits of the decade that fashion forgot. All the songs in the show are new, although many borrow the odd familiar phrase or reference from tracks of the era. Half the fun is spotting them. "Nowadays it's very rare to do a brand new musical with an original score. It's a risk to have no recognisable songs in it. But I think the music works really well," says Wilkes.

"Although we have rocked it up a lot more than they did on Broadway – there it was a lot more poppy."

Wilkes first discovered the show during a visit to New York, and confesses, "I wasn't actually going to do any theatre this year, but this part came knocking and I knew I couldn't turn it down.

"I saw the show on Broadway and I thought, 'If ever a part in a musical was written for me, this is the part.' I loved it. I am the wedding singer – I sang at four of my mates' weddings. That is who I am as person. I just couldn't resist it."

Although both Wilkes and his co-star Natalie Casey are too young to really remember the 1980s clearly, they are loving every second of inhabiting the decade that gave us Boy George, Billy Idol, luminous green jump-suits and Mr T.

Born in 1978, Wilkes admits that his memories are limited to his sister's "big hair and shoulder pads" and his mum's "all-in-one romper suits".

Casey laughs as she recalls, "I was born in 1980, but it is a very popular decade reference-wise, so I know the music and I know the hairstyles and fashions. I'm glad I didn't live through it myself, however. I would have had to pass on a green jump-suit."

Casey, best known for her roles as Donna in the BBC comedy Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Carol Groves in the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, plays waitress Julia Sullivan in The Wedding Singer – a part that tempted her to tour with a show for the first time.

"I knew the film very well because I'm a stupidly massive Adam Sandler fan. I also knew that they had done it on Broadway. When I heard this was coming I begged my agent to get me an audition – and got it.

"My major goal was to get into an original cast production. I wanted to bring a sense of fun to the role. The impression I got from the Broadway production is that the Julias were always played very 'street', not aggressive but ballsy. I felt that she should be more fun and innocent and nice.

"I wanted to develop that myself and, as this is a comedy musical, keep some form of spontaneity when on stage. That's why I am unbelievably grateful that Jonathan has a sense of humour – it would be just horrible if you had to play opposite somebody you didn't get on with."

Much of the show's success comes from Wilkes and Casey's easy, spontaneous chemistry.

Wilkes, the proud father of a two-year-old son called Mickey, adds, "It's the whole of our show, because in the story we have to fall in love with each other.

"Luckily we get on incredibly well. We're like brother and sister off-stage and we hit it off really quickly."

"The difficult thing," laughs Casey, "is that by the end of the week I'm all loved out. So when I go home and see my partner I'm like, 'Hi', 'Yeah,' because my character is so in love on stage."

And talking of love, Casey has another admission to make. "I'm not a big fan of weddings. I know that is an awful thing to confess but they just go on so long.

"You have to be there about 12 noon and there are never any canapes left, everybody is p***ed by 4pm – I'm a bit over it. Or was. This show has entirely converted me, especially as I have to wear a wedding dress in it. Before, I was always the one skulking at the back . . ."

Beside the bar ordering two pints . . . ?

"No," she chips in, "beside the dessert table."

• The Wedding Singer, Edinburgh Playhouse, Greenside Place, Monday-Saturday, various times, £10-£29.50, 0844-847 1661

Wonder of Wilkes

JONATHAN WILKES cemented his light- entertainment credentials presenting ITV's Saturday night video-clip show You've Been Framed.

However, away from the small screen, the musical stage has become his home, with starring roles in Godspell, Grease, Guys and Dolls, The Rocky Horror Show, Tommy and now The Wedding Singer.

Reflecting on those roles, he says, "People ask which was my favourite role. Well, I'd have to say that Frank 'n' Furter in Rocky was my ultimate character – he was a bit of every-thing.

"Sky Masterton in Guys and Dolls, Danny Zuko in Grease, Jesus and Judas in Godspell were all something different again. Tommy, different still. I like to challenge myself.

"One of my ambitions in life is to play the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, and I will do it one day."

And Wilkes is looking forward to his return to the Capital – his first since Godspell in 2002. "I've got so many fond memories of Edinburgh. I loved doing the opening night of Godspell at the Festival Theatre there. I still get shown pictures of me, Robbie and Daniel Macpherson when we all wore our kilts. It was a great time."