Carving a niche in the studio isn't likely to be easier. Despite having grown up in the music industry - his father is a senior industry executive - Cheng has had a turbulent career. He enjoyed a promising start in the late 1990s, quickly establishing a name as a talented singer of melancholic ballads. But success went to his head, and Cheng almost wrecked his music career in 2000 after going on a drunken rampage on a flight from Los Angeles to Taipei. He was arrested, found guilty of attacking the crew, and received a suspended jail sentence.

Six years later, Cheng has put behind him that negative image as the unruly scion of an indulgent, wealthy father. The rehabilitation took a roundabout route.

Director Vincent Kok Tak-chiu spotted Cheng's cross-dressing performance in a TVB skit, and invited him to repeat it in the 2003 Lunar New Year comedy My Lucky Star. Audiences loved his wacky persona, leading to roles in other slapstick comedies, including Dragon Reloaded (2003), about a spoilt brat with a sense of justice, Super Model (2004), in which he played a flamboyant celebrity, and Himalaya Singh (2005), about a daft yogi finding harmony with the universe. All did well at the box office, inviting comparisons between him and comedy king Stephen Chow Sing-chi.

'I don't know why they like to see me dress as a woman. Maybe it's because I'm not the ugliest [cross-dresser], nor the prettiest. I'm just in-between,' says Cheng. 'I don't know why people compare me to Stephen Chow. I love his stuff. But for my own movies, I sometimes feel embarrassed to watch them again.'

Movie' success has cast Cheng's singing career in the shade. Recalling how a child in the street greeted him recently, Cheng says: 'He called me 'Brother Dragon' [his character in Dragon Reloaded]. But when his mother told him I was a singer, the boy was, like, 'Huh, he sings?''

His multi-track career is typical of Hong Kong show business these days. Entertainers are expected to shift back and forth between singing and acting. Besides playing two bumbling gangster characters in Gordon Chan Ka-sheung's movie, Undercover Hidden Dragon, Cheng is adopting a more sober mien for his concert - he poses as a solemn orchestra conductor for publicity shots.

'Do I look like [conductor] Yip Wing-sie [in the poster]?' he asks with a laugh. 'I'd like to have an image that is more circumspect in music.'

Still, can he cast off his comic persona at the concerts? Cheng insists on maintaining a high level of musicianship. But his attempt to present himself as a straight singer is unconvincingly droll. Heeding calls for the shows to include humour, he says the concerts will include a short skit with his Dragon Reloaded co-stars Sam Lee Chan-sam and Cheung Tat-ming. 'Fans have requested jokes,' he says. 'I don't mind giving it a more light-hearted feel, but music should be separate from films.'

It's an unexpected dilemma for Cheng, who says he had always set out to be a music producer. Cheng has been around music industry professionals since he was a child. His father, Norman Cheng, heads EMI Music Asia, having led Polygram for years, and music producer Michael Au Ting-yuk is a family friend. So a career in the music business seemed natural.

'I've known Michael since I was little, and he taught me all about recording and editing,' says Cheng. He earned a degree in business and music history at the Mt San Antonio College in Los Angeles in 1994, but 'just never thought about becoming a singer'.

The chance arrived when Au invited him to be a backing singer on an album he was recording in Los Angeles with singer Jacky Cheung Hok-yau. 'Au thinks I have a good voice and said I should try singing for three or four years,' Cheng says.

He took the producer's advice and became an immediate hit in Taiwan in 1996, releasing 13 albums in just four years, although his reception in Hong Kong was lukewarm. Confused about where his career was headed - and perhaps troubled by his break-up with singer-actress Miriam Yeung Chin-wah - Cheng stumbled.

'Fame had come to me too easily,' he says. 'The [record company] had been unhelpful; the management never gave me new songs and I just didn't know how to focus my career. I just drank to escape.' After his inflight debacle, Alex Chan Siu-po, then head of Universal Music, to which Cheng was signed, refused to renew his contract. Chan told him that he had 'no chance' in show business.

But industry veteran Paco Wong Pak-ko signed Cheng to his talent management agency, Gold Label. After a lull, Cheng's career was rekindled by his comedic turn in Kok's My Lucky Star, earning him a best supporting actor nomination in the Hong Kong Film Awards three years ago. Dragon Reloaded further consolidated his standing as a comedian.

Cheng isn't sure how far his idea to ease out of movies can be realised. He still has several film projects in hand, including another Chan movie in which he will play a man who discovers he has a son. He also knows the music industry is going through difficult times.

His manager had urged him to stage concerts two years ago, but he felt he hadn't built up enough of a repertoire of Cantonese songs. But Cheng's confidence grew after he began composing songs under a pseudonym for singers such as Alex Fong Lik-sun, and his hit song Rascal from the album Before, After won several awards last year.

Cheng is happy to take things slowly, however. 'Maybe I can at least minimise my appearance on screen,' he says.

Ronald Cheng in Concert, Hong Kong Coliseum, Fri-Sun, 8.15pm, tickets $100, $200, $300, $400. Bookings: 2111 5999