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Milton Keynes mum Louise Roche is an inspiration to any would-be writer waiting for their big break!

One night as she sat in the Milton Keynes Theatre watching a Shane Ritchie musical she thought "I could do this!"

And she did!

Her first play Girls' Night subsequently enjoyed a hugely successful UK tour and has just opened in America. And now, Louise, who writes plays on her kitchen table, is bringing her latest venture Girls' Behind, to Milton Keynes.

Can you tell me about the new show?

Louise: The only thing that it has in common with Girls' Night is the fact that I wrote it and it's got "girl" in the title! It's basically three girls who are first and foremost friends and then they form a singing act. They call themselves The Diamonds who go to a club for an audition and get taken on as the resident band. But they have much loftier hopes than that.

You then see them over the next 20 years as they marry, divorce and fall out! Halfway through this process, one of them, Lois, gets made the lead singer and she is a bit up herself really which makes her very funny. Everyone will know a Lois, she doesn't listen to anyone else and isn't concerned with anyone else except herself. Being made the lead singer puts the other twos' noses out of joint and lots of secrets come out.

Louise: Yes - that's what I try to do, I try to make them real, warts and all. They are the kind of women that I like writing about. The other two characters are great as well. Sadie is very "tell-it-like-it-is" and has some great one-liners but is really kind and Serena is the one in the middle, trying to keep these two warring women speaking to each other!

It's a different show, but sounds as though it has the same musical comedy feel as Girls' Night? What songs are in this?

Louise: There are some great songs in it. "Think" by Aretha Franklin opens the show. Then there's "You've Got a Friend", "This is It", "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" and an amazing "Stay With Me Baby" which Lois sings, and that character is played by Donna Hazelton who won Musicality and has an amazing voice. All three have great voices. There's Maureen Nolan, who we went to see in Blood Brothers who was brilliant in the West End, and Sue Devaney (Casualty, Dinnerladies) who people will recognise but won't know as a singer but she's been singing in clubs for years.

So it's still a good girls' night out to come and see this?

Louise: Yes - it's all the great songs and you see all the in-fighting backstage. It's very moving in places but then, like women, we're laughing again afterwards!

It's just going on tour, starting with Milton Keynes. Is this the first time it will have been seen in MK?

Louise: No. How we do our plays is that I try new plays out on a group of friends really, the amateur group that we work with, and we perform that at Madcap in Wolverton. Then we take it on a medium sized tour to see if audiences elsewhere like it and for me to get it a bit better. And only then do we take it on a number one tour because they are quite expensive! So we try and market test them a bit first and de-risk it!

You have a great story yourself with "Girls' Night" being written in your Milton Keynes kitchen. Was "Girls' Behind" written there too?!

Louise: I actually wrote "Girls Behind" in bed - there's nowhere else to do it! No, I usually do it surrounded by kids and have to tell them to be quiet because I'm trying to think!

I think it's inspirational to all would-be writers that you've been able to have your domestic life and produce all this work as well. And "Girls' Night" has just had its American premiere. How did that come about?

Louise: It was just luck! We didn't go out looking for it! There's this guy in America who originated "Menopause - The Musical" and he had been looking for another girls' show for the last four years. He regularly surfs the Internet and saw that our show was on in Wimbledon and thought it was the West End!

He rang one Saturday morning and my husband, who directs the shows as well, answered the phone and thought it was my brother messing about! Eventually he realised that he was for real and talked to him! He came over to see it and described the moment he realised it was something special. He was standing outside the Wimbledon Theatre at 7.20pm and there was nobody there. He thought he had come to see a turkey and then suddenly out of all the bars and restaurants, all these women just swarmed into the theatre really excited, and he got really excited and made us an offer the next morning!

We thought he'd just do it and we'd get a royalty but then he told us that he wanted the production that we did, so my husband went over there for five weeks and took the kids over for three, spending his director's fee on a holiday, and then it opened in Scotsdale Arizona!

But the best thing was that in our contract it said that we could get business class seats to the opening but we asked to downgrade them so that we could take more people. They agreed so we were able to take the original Madcap cast to the opening in America which was just brilliant! They were so instrumental in the whole thing that it was nice to do it with them.

It's a wonderful story for both you and for Milton Keynes?

Louise: Yes - and there are a lot of people from Milton Keynes who have been involved in it - our lighting and set designer for example, so wherever we can we are using local people. And also, Girls' Behind is only the second production to come out of Milton Keynes Theatre, and Girls' Night was the very first one, it's usually just a receiving house.

It all shows that dreams can come true. What advice do you have for people who want to go along the writing for theatre route?

Louise: Do it! Just sit down and do it! Every time I sit down to write a new play it's a struggle but you just have to do it. Everybody says "oh yes, I'm going to write something" but you've just got to sit down and get going!

What's next for you then?

Louise: I'm writing a new play based around a baby shower which will be on at Madcap in March. The next professional thing we're doing is "Girls' Night 2" which is the sequel to "Girls' Night". We did that at Madcap last year and people seemed to like it so we're sending it out next May I think (2008).

So finally then - why should people come and see Girls Behind?

Louise: If they enjoyed "Girls Night" they should definitely come, it's that same kind of humour and great songs. You'll leave the theatre feeling good. That's what we try to do with our plays, they have interesting characters and usually have an uplifting message at the end!