Svelte, sexy, award-winning actress and sitcom superstar, Sheridan Smith, is tucking into a lot more than ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ these days. In an effort to emulate the buxom beauty of the plump ladies’ cult heroine, Bridget Jones, in preparation for the long-awaited West End debut of Bridget Jones’ Diary: The Musical, the petite Legally Blonde bombshell is eating up a storm.

Although the thirty-year-old, who has a figure better suited to the catwalks of Paris, London and Rome, is consciously choosing fatty fried foods and treacly treats over crab sticks and carrots, the high energy dance rehearsals are arresting the necessary development of additional pounds of flesh! “There will be a lot of dancing, that’s the thing – it’s just wondering whether you can keep it on doing eight shows a week. But I’ll eat loads don’t worry,” claimed Smith.

Sheridan is no stranger to gratuitous guzzling. As Michelle, the duplicitous nutritionist in the BBC sitcom, Grownups, Smith was particularly attached to all the nutritional no-nos, including copious quantities of alcohol, squirty cream, crisps and Flumps! The musical adaption of Bridget Jones’ Diary is a collaborative effort between Tony Award-winning director, Stephen Daldry, choreographer, Peter Darling, and UK singles chart topper, Lily Allen, who penned the songs in inimitable style.

Bridget Jones’ Diary: The Musical is due to open in London’s West End in 2012 and will feature Michael Xavier as Mark Darcy and a stout and stocky Sheridan Smith in the title role.