Well I am delighted to report that his vocals are not letting him down in Hairspray. Maybe Zoe had an affect on him

Glad to hear it ... in fact one of our TomCats said he was impressed with how much Ben had improved vocally.

I enjoyed his performance on The Royal Variety

Perhaps, but then I guess everyone is limited in some way. Most people aren't suitable for every part (gender aside, of course!)

Actually - having said that (about gender) didn't Daniel play a woman in a musical recently?

A while ago ... yes ... he understudied the role of Angel in the 'original' Rent. I saw him as Mark, but would have been interested to see him play Angel ...

If you are talking about recent productions you may be getting confused about I Love You Because, which was billed as a gender-swapping version of Pride and Predudice........but it was very definitely a male part - we know as he appeared in a shower scene at one point.........some people went to see it quite a few times..........

Ah yes, so I heard!

Some of the publicity made it sound like the cast were all having sex changes!

Yes, some of the pre-performance publicity seemed to concentrate on the gender swapping theme (!), but in fact the show was nothing like that at all, and - apart from the names - there didn't seem to be any connection with P&P at all.
It was great fun tho'.

Wasn't there also a concert where people were singing songs normally sung by the opposite gender or something?

Yes - I went to that - it was for Theatrecares. Daniel sang 'The Wizard and I' from Wicked.

He was brilliant as were Nicky and Rod from Avenue Q singing 'Take Me or Leave Me' from Rent (usually sung by the two lesbian characters). I haven't laughed so much for years!

Agree with this, Lee's voice isn't powerful enough to do the Phantom role, Connie was ok though

As I've mentioned previously in this thread, Lee has played Raul (the male character in the All I Ask Of You duet) in the West End! He was understudying, but played the character at 30 performances (over a period of 5 months - he left when he got to the final 12 in ADWD)! Would they really have let him do that if his voice wasn't considered powerful enough for the role?

All I ask of you is not a song that should be 'belted out' - it's a tender exchange of loving words! Lee sounded stunning when he was performing it and managed to convey the emotion of the song with subtlety - a glance, a gesture, a facial expression!

I think you're equating 'powerful' with 'loud', which is not what it actually means in the context of a voice. A powerful voice is one that can mesmerise an audience with it's strength, but also with expression - it takes a lot of vocal talent to be able to sing something so quietly it's almost a whisper, yet is still in tune and can still be clearly heard! Lee does that stunningly well (listen to the duet he performed in ADWD with Josh Groban and his performance of I Don't Wanna Talk About It, which are on youtube).

There's also a spellbinding 'live' performance of Close Every Door, which he did at a Gala for Andrew Lloyd Webber in August - he received a standing ovation for it and was the only performer of the evening to be given that accolade!

I'm not sure Lee's old enough to play the Phantom yet. Also I'm think I've read comments from Lee saying the same.

Although he understudied Ramin Karimloo in both Miss Saigon (Chris) & Phantom (Raoul) & Ramin's now playing the phantom.........

I don't think anyone was suggesting that Lee should play the Phantom. As you pointed out, he's too young at the moment (though from July 14th he'll be the 27 - the same age Ramin K was when he took on the role of the Phantom).

Personally, I'd rather see Lee as Raul and Christine's son in Phantom II (John Barrowman mentioned in a small magazine item at the weekend that he was doing a WE show in 2009 - I suspect this will be Phantom II! Imagine JB and Lee in the same show - that would be fabulous!) rather than going back to Phantom I.