Drug addiction made him drop the excesses of the 1980s, but Boy George hasn't lost his spirit, writes Penelope Dening

In this age of the manufactured pop star, the real thing comes as a breath of fresh air. Eccentric, some might even say egocentric, Boy George is up there with the greats. With the voice of a choirboy and the wit of a stand-up, the best of his songs stand alongside anything Britpop has given us. And for flamboyance and pop personality, he gives all of them, past or present, a run for their money.

The key staging post in George O'Dowd's journey to stardom was the London club scene at the end of the 1970s, when an extravagant appearance was the key to social success and the sexually ambivalent mixed with the avant-garde in a fusion of creative energy. This club scene is the setting for his new musical, Taboo (named after a key venue), which is running in the West End of London.

"We were all these kind of creatures who were desperate to make something of our lives, and I used to go back to my parents' house with albums of cuttings of me in French magazines, Japanese magazines and the Fleet Street press. I remember I was on the cover of Stern magazine, with this mad straight-up hairdo, which we do use in the show" - many of the Boy George outfits in Taboo are George's originals - "and my mother couldn't get her head around it. 'Why are you in these magazines? What is it that you do?' But once we started the band, she could tell people what my son does."

Culture Club gave Boy George his raison d'être, and he turned out to be more than just a pretty face. Twenty years on, the singer-songwriter has lost none of his edge. A regular guest on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, the music quiz on BBC2, he continues to push the boundaries of gay acceptability and refuses to be tamed. Unlike Elton John, there is no chance of Boy George becoming the queen mother of pop.

As the man responsible for all 16 new songs in Taboo, George is quick to point out that this is not the Boy George story. With a successful autobiography behind him, he'd had enough of his own life. "But there were so many colourful characters around that it gave me a chance to give them a voice." Most of the characters in Taboo are taken from life - "a cast of freaks" that includes the club organiser Philip Sallon ("my longest friendship"), the transvestite singer Marilyn and Leigh Bowery, a key figure in the subculture of the era, who in 1985 opened the eponymous Taboo club.

"I always write about personal situations and relationships, and it was always my aspiration to write songs that were true-life stories. I'm a huge Joni Mitchell fan, and I think that in terms of painting visual pictures there's no one greater, and I've grown up listening to her and Bob Dylan."

As for the rigours of writing a musical, George sailed through. He grew up on a diet of Busby Berkeley, and it was when he saw Alan Cumming's Cabaret recently that he was tempted to give musicals a go. "My thing has always been writing. I enjoy performing, but I always think that the best rock venues are people's bedrooms. I mean, as a kid growing up, I would often sit in the dark and listen to my Bowie albums or my Gladys Knight albums and immerse myself in the songs.

"I've always been an uncomfortable performer in the sense that my stuff is so personal that performing on stage in front of people can be a bit weird. I much prefer the process of being in the studio, analysing and thinking about it. I still find it a bit scary, even after all this time."

The man perched on the bar stool behind the auditorium bears only a passing resemblance to the painted 1980s icon. Hardly surprising, given that he turned 40 in June. But onstage, Boy George lives again in full technicolor glory, in the uncanny reincarnation of Euan Morton.

Doesn't George find it unnerving? He laughs. Not a bit, he says, "though I think if Culture Club reform, I might get Euan to perform - I'll just take a percentage".

As for performing himself, he might take over the Bowery role for a couple of weeks, he says. "Although watching what the actors go through and how hard they work, I don't know if I could take it. I became a rock star because I'm quite lazy. Like Keith Richards said, it's like sex. You spend more time talking about it than you do doing it. When you're actually on the stage it's fantastic; it's all the bits in between that become a bit tiresome.

"I always felt that rock and roll was my revenge against all those who called me names, all those people who said I'd never be anything - like my headmaster. His parting words to me were: 'You'll never make anything of yourself.' "

These days, the fragile-flower persona is carried on a stalk of steel. The humiliation of George's well-chronicled drug addiction, in the late 1980s, made him reassess his priorities. "I had literally to reprogramme myself not to give off that energy which says I want attention, look at me. When I'm in my full regalia, that's me saying, hey, look at me. But when I'm going on a bus or the tube in a baseball cap and sweatpants, that's me saying I want to blend into the background, though it doesn't always work. Sometimes, no matter how much you disguise yourself, someone will tap you on the shoulder and it's, like, oh my god, is there no peace?"

Not unexpectedly, George is dismayed by the state of pop music. "The romance of rock and roll has been dismantled to the point where there's no mystery any more, and I think that's really sad." Something like punk, he says, could never happen now. "In this information age, it would be in a B&Q advert within two weeks. It's all so much more mercenary now; it's all about making a buck. But my criticisms are really levelled at [those in] the industry. They've been given a responsibility that they're not valuing or respecting. The fact that certain artists get $80 million deals means that all those little interesting bands that have something to say - and they are out there - are not going to get a look in. The other obstacle is that there are so few independent record stores that can make a difference now. To get played on the radio or get stocked in a record shop is an assault course.

"If you look at these groups now, there's a kind of arrogance that we didn't have. They're taught to dance, taught to interview, taught how to dress. When you first see them on Top Of The Pops, they're so polished. [Culture Club's] first appearance on Top Of The Pops was a complete accident. We were two or three slots too low in the charts to be considered for Top Of The Pops, but by chance Shakin' Stevens had a cold and we got this phone call, literally at 11 o'clock at night, saying would we do it. I don't think I slept that night. We didn't have the same expectations. You didn't think you were going to be successful."

As for the recent Pop Idol furore, he's appalled. "It's almost like insider trading. Simon Cowell was not only one of the judges, he's managing and writing songs for them. If you did that at the stock exchange, you'd be behind bars."

The score of Taboo is refreshingly direct, and in Out Of Fashion George has written a complex quartet of considerable emotional power. Does he see himself going further down the musical road? The embodiment of knowing innocence twinkles his trademark Mona Lisa smile. "As it happens, Andrew Lloyd Webber has just invited me to supper, so who knows?"

Taboo is at The Venue, off Leicester Square, London, and is booking until September on 00-44-870-8993335