THE prospect of seeing Corringham babe Denise Van Outen in a lesbian clinch, live on stage, looks likely to make her next venture a hot ticket.

The showbiz starlet, 33, has been signed up to play a bisexual in a new production of the hit West End musical, Rent.

Denise - who was drafted in for the role of Maureen at the last minute - has to kiss two women on stage during the show.

Her raunchy performance is expected to attract the crowds when the musical opens at London's Duke of York theatre on October 16.

Rent is loosely based on Puccini's opera, La Boheme, and has enjoyed a massively-successful run on Broadway.

The television presenter-turned-actress, whose parents still live in Corringham where she grew up, first shot to fame after she was picked to co-host The Big Breakfast with Johnny Vaughan.

Since then, she has found success onstage as an actress and singer. She's certainly no stranger to treading the boards in the West End.

As a child, Van Outen played young Eponine in Les Miserables and also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

More recently she played Roxie Hart in Chicago in the West End and Broadway and also starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show Tell Me On A Sunday at the Gielgud Theatre.