SCOTS actor Gordon Cooper has landed his biggest role to date – as Susan Boyle's boyfriend.
The theatre star will portray the singer's one and only love interest in the new musical based on her life.
Boyle, of Blackburn, West Lothian, has previously told how she had a brief relationship with a local man called John when she was in her 20s.
He even proposed to her before the 50-year-old's father Patrick told her to end the romance because he felt she wasn't ready for a boyfriend.
In the musical I Dreamed A Dream, which opens next week, Cooper will be seen as John opposite Rab C Nesbitt actress Elaine C Smith, who plays Britain's Got Talent star Boyle.
He is seen presenting her with a bouquet of flowers as they prepare to go out on a date. Cooper trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and has appeared in Shakespeare plays and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.
Boyle, who will make a special guest appearance in the musical, has told how one of the saddest moments in the show for her is when it features her lost love.
She said: "The musical looks at the brief romance I had with 'wee John', the relationship I had in my late-20s. It lasted only seven weeks until my dad brought a stop to it.
"He was very strict and very protective of me and he didn't feel I was ready for a relationship at the time.
"Nevertheless, it hurt when it ended. The pain of that experience made me even more determined to focus on my singing."
She added: "When Elaine and her team came to me with the idea I had a meeting with the family to make sure we wouldn't upset anyone."
During her famous audition on Britain's Got Talent, Boyle told judges she had never been kissed but later admitted to seeing John.
I Dreamed A Dream opens at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle on Friday before going on a nationwide tour.
A spokeswoman for the musical said Cooper was busy with rehearsals and unavailable for comment.
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