Four years after putting his singing career on hold to chase a spot in the Australian Olympic swimming team, Cody Simpson is set to return to the stage, with one of the lead roles in next year’s Opera Australia production of Guys and Dolls.

And fittingly for the 27-year-old, who quit competitive swimming earlier this year, the show will be presented on the massive over-water stage at Mrs Macquaries Point as part of OA’s annual Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour series.

Simpson, who began his successful pop career at just 14, says he was “over the moon” to learn he had landed the role of Sky Masterton, made famous on screen by Marlon Brando, in the new production of the award-winning musical.

Simpson has been a fan of musical theatre in general, and Guys and Dolls in particular, since he was a youngster growing up on the Gold Coast.

“I fell in love with the crooners - Dean Martin, Sinatra etcetera,” he says. “And then I found the Guys and Dolls movie through my exploration of anything and everything Sinatra had done in his life.”

Repeated viewing of the movie stood Simpson in good stead when he came to audition this year. “I knew all the songs pretty much top to bottom already,” he says.

Simpson’s previous experience in musical theatre came in 2018 when he played Dmitri in a Broadway production of Anastasia. But, although he loved the experience, he subsequently quit the stage for the pressure cooker world of competitive swimming.