As a West End star and bestselling author, Carrie Hope Fletcher is no stranger to fan mail from her adoring supporters.

But for her latest project, the multi-talented performer is asking her loyal fans to write her letters of a different type: love letters not to her, but about someone else – or indeed something – that they love.

The letters she receives will form the basis of her latest solo tour, the aptly named Love Letters, which will see Fletcher read out some of this heartfelt correspondence live on stage.

“I want people to think outside of the box,” she explains. “It could be about siblings, parents, partners – but we have some interesting letters to inanimate objects or feelings or things you would never expect to write letters to.

“Some are really sweet, as people have written letters secretly to those they are bringing to the show. So someone in the audience will not know I will be dedicating a letter and song to them on the night.”

Fletcher, whose CV features some of the biggest shows in musical theatre history – including Les Misérables, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and, more recently, Heathers and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella – says her new solo tour is a chance for her to show “gratitude” for things she doesn’t spend enough time “being grateful towards”.

“There are a lot of people I want to pay homage to with this tour, but there are lots of things in my life too, like musical theatre and Disney and writing,” she says. “Even the audiences will be getting a massive amount of love from me on the night.”

It’s not hard to imagine Fletcher dishing out love on stage. She’s bubbly, warm and has an infectious upbeat energy.

It was this personality that helped her find early fame, when she began making videos – vlogs – about her life when she was a teenager. Today, her YouTube channel has more than 500,000 subscribers, while hundreds of thousands also follow her on Instagram.

“I have moments where I think ‘Oh my god, it’s too much, too much scrutiny’. But ultimately I love it, I am an over-sharer at my core and love sharing. The positives always outweigh the negatives, it’s just sometimes the negatives get a bit too loud,” she says.

While sharing details of her life on social media is something she has become known for, it’s musical theatre that is Fletcher's main passion.

“I don’t ever remember not singing and a time I didn’t not want to be doing this,” she says. “I am so lucky everything aligned.”

Now 31, she grew up in Harrow, north London, the daughter of parents who were, in her own words, “very normal, hard-working people”. Her mum was a learning support teacher at a primary school, her dad worked at a Kodak factory.

As a kid she watched her older brother, Tom (now of McFly fame), attend Sylvia Young Theatre School and star in Oliver! at the London Palladium.

Keen to try it herself, Fletcher did weekend classes at Sylvia Young’s and was also signed to the school’s agency.

Aged seven, she landed the part of young Éponine in Les Mis, before roles came along in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins.

She learned on the job, soaking up everything she could from her co-stars.

“My brother used to say I sounded like a trumpet as I had this big, belty voice,” she laughs. “I grew up listening to Michael Ball and Lea Salonga and Frances Ruffelle, so it was a case of trying to replicate that when I was younger. It took me a very long time to learn how to turn the volume down.”

In her teens, Fletcher and her brother began to write a musical together. Despite initial interest from Steven Spielberg no less (”It was properly mad,” Fletcher recalls) nothing came of it, but Fletcher had by this time met and made friends with a producer called Marc Samuelson.

Having missed out on the window to apply for drama schools, he helped her get in front of some agents, and – after a few initial rejections – she was taken on by leading agency Curtis Brown, which was in the process of setting up a musical theatre division.

Through them, Fletcher went on to be cast as the older Éponine in Les Mis and her path to musical theatre stardom was set.

She has since gone on to play some of the most iconic roles in musical theatre history, including Fantine in Les Mis and the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella. This production – a retelling of the fairytale – was beset by problems, including having to temporarily close due to Covid and public spats between cast and composer.

Despite this, Fletcher looks back on her time in the show fondly.

“Originating any role, especially in a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, is an exciting thing and will always remain an exciting thing,” she says. “I will always try and take positives from it as I think no job will ever be as hard as that one. We got through that as a collective and know nothing will ever be as difficult as that.”

For now, her focus is on her solo tour, which will see her joined on stage by special guests, including musical stars Jamie Muscato, Bradley Jaden and Ben Forster.

And given the tour's theme of “love”, Fletcher will be drawing on a recent life event of her own. A few months ago, she and husband Joel Montague (a fellow West End star, currently in Hamilton) had a baby girl. She'll be talking about her love for her daughter as part of the show.

“I have to rein it in a bit, but it would be inauthentic not to talk about it,” she says.

“I need to watch myself as I feel I have become a thousand times more emotional since becoming a mum. I have to put some lighthearted jokes into the show where I can, to take myself out of it, otherwise it will be 45 minutes longer than it needs to be. It would just be me sobbing through every letter.”

Song wise, she promises plenty of numbers people have come to know and love her for. On top of that, audiences will be able to influence the songs performed each night through a QR code, which will list the letters being used, but not the songs they are connected with. When audiences vote for their favourite letters, they will be deciding what songs are performed.

“There will be classic musical theatre numbers that everyone knows, but I have dug deeper into the world of musical theatre and the more obscure world of Disney, too,” Fletcher says excitedly.

“I didn’t want to come out just singing A Whole New World, I want to sing some old school Disney songs that don’t always get the appreciation. And it will be really fun.”

Carrie Hope Fletcher: Love Letters is at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, on 27 and 28 September (7.30pm). Tickets from £42, Meet and Greet £103. Limited tickets remaining. Tickets can be purchased at www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/whats-on/carrie-hope-fletcher-love-letters or by calling the box office on 01483 440000.