Last time, it all ended in tears but now Rowetta is ready for a reborn Sister Act, reports Charles Hutchinson.

ROWETTA Satchell knows life’s ups and downs, whether in her professional or personal life, but she always bounces back.

Anyone who survives working with the Happy Mondays at their substance-guzzling peak, or navigates her way through the first season of The X Factor, can handle the unpredictable rise and fall and rise again of The Songs Of Sister Act.

You may recall this gospel musical spin-off from the Sister Act movies opening its short debut tour in York in February last year, when the Manchester singer was joined by the Three Degrees’ Sheila Ferguson and the London Community Gospel Choir for the first of eight dates.

It should have been a case of O Happy Day but, according to Rowetta, the producer didn’t pay her “or the choir – there were ten of them – or the live band, the lighting guys, the sound man, everybody, apart from Sheila Ferguson who got paid upfront”.

The show returns to the Grand Opera House on Wednesday, minus Sheila but still with Rowetta and the choir, and a new producer, after the original production company was dissolved. No wonder they will be singing Joyful Joyful!

Rowetta can testify to the sentiments of another of the show’s peaks, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, as she set about tracking down the producer who she said let her down last year. “He went off to Australia, his phones were off, but I managed to find out where his stepdad lived,” she says.

She learned that he was on a cruise, from where he was posting pictures on facebook. “We sent an application to the courts, each of us under different orders, and then he filed for bankruptcy,” says Rowetta.

“I got nothing, though I feel worse for the choir. I felt terrible at the time, and I told the Manchester Evening News what had happened after I ended up going to the police after his stepdad called me names when I turned up – and I’d only turned up on my own.”

Rowetta has put those experiences behind her.

“It’s now time to move on and let’s forget about it,” she says.

“The shows had gone well last year and we all felt we could do a bigger tour.

“The musical director, Richard Anderson, said he’d have a word with one of his producer friends, David Halford, from Glasgow, who does loads of shows, so we did lots of emails and phone calls last year and I was really pleased when the London Community Gospel Choir said they wanted to do it again… and Sheila Ferguson has given us her blessing, too.”

Rowetta enjoys singing in a nun’s habit.

“It’s loose fitting, so I don’t have to worry about not holding my tummy in, because you’re concentrating on the lyric and the emotion, rather than thinking, ‘How do I look from the side?’. You’re not worried about fat photos turning up on facebook!” she says.

Rowetta is in buoyant mood, on the road and off the booze after taking part in the Rehab series in Malibu on Living TV; working with New Order’s Peter Hook, The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and The Stones Roses’ Mani in Freebase; setting up her own record label; and full of the joys of being made a godmother to Happy Mondays’ compadre Bez’s little boy, Leo.

“I’m definitely in control now. I don’t need a drink now, though I’m not saying it’s forever, but I don’t need a drink to sing,” she says.

Spirits of the holy variety in The Songs Of Sister Act will suffice.

The Songs Of Sister Act with Rowetta and the London Community Gospel Choir, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday at 7.30pm. Tickets: £18.50 on 0844 847 2322 or www.grandoperahouseyork.org.uk