Award-winning TV star Robert Whitehead is prancing around in heels and drag for the all-male, all-madness revue Doo Bee Boobies, which opened this week at Joburg Theatre's Fringe venue. He reveals all to Zingi Mkefa - but even more on stage

Do you mind people always referring to you as the villain Barker Haines from Isidingo?

Not at all. I'm happy that they should do that. People also come up to me and say, 'Hey Barker, you old bastard, why you being so horrible?' But it's all in good spirit. When people ask me for autographs, I usually sign 'Barker'.

Well, I'm not anonymous any more. Isidingo has national, even international, recognition. Isidingo plays in countries we don't even know those buggers at the SABC have sold it to. But I know if I go to Zambia, they go mad, absolutely mad, because they are crazy for it. You'd be in the middle of the bush and they'd say, 'Oh Barker Haines ...'. It's crazy.

On some level you want fame, but you also don't want the fame because it takes away your private life, your anonymity . So it is a conflict. But it's not anything that requires anybody's sympathy because you're asking for it in one way. You can't do it and not expect that if you're successful in your career.

Probably, yes. It came at a time where I had sort of gotten over my mad clubbing, partying, jolling, running around all day and all night. I can still do it but I don't feel like it as much. If one is younger, and out 'n' about and causing trouble and you get swept up by this fame and celebrity thing, then it can get out of hand.

I think I'm good for another couple of years, if they want to keep me going. Work-wise, it's my home away from home, where I've spent so many hours of the last eight years with people I really like.

Yes, because it's been so much of the foundation of my whole career. The nice thing about this is the producers of Isidingo are very keen for their actors to go back into the theatre because it's very revitalising and stimulating and it keeps one from getting stale and bored.

I trained in London. Spent most of the '70s abroad in the UK and America. I came back because I was extremely worn down living hand to mouth, having four jobs at a time, and jolling and living this mad kind of semi-underground New York life and everything. I suddenly started to get really worried about myself, and I was sort of feeling very uneasy, feeling threatened in a weird sort of way. I started to feel very insecure and scared ...

Oh, I was in my 30s and these were the years of 1978, '79, '80, where this thing called Aids that we didn't know about was already loose in the world, and particularly there. I'm not saying that this is the only reason. Many people say maybe I came back because I wasn't brave enough to stick it out. That's very possibly the truth. But I always realised that if I had stayed, after a few years I would have undoubtedly been dead, along with most of my friends who lived there. I thought: 'You're 30 years old now, you've been staggering around here in New York and you don't know what the devil you're doing, go home for a while and act! Do your work.' And so that's what I did. And it's probably saved my life.

Yes. On television, we do things in little bits. And when you've been away from theatre for a year, coming back to it is challenging. But you eventually find your stamina.