Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, you feel my pain. "I know what it was like. I was near bankruptcy, overweight, desolate, depressed, miserable, broken my marriage, lost lots of dear friends, lost my mother," Ferguson said at one woebegone point during a conference call yesterday morning to promote her stage debut in the touring extravaganza, A Royal Christmas 2003.

Tell me about it. And now, to top it all off, the show ain't even going on.

A Royal Christmas, with Ferguson and co-stars Angela Lansbury, Christopher Plummer and Linda Ronstadt and a huge supporting cast, was called off yesterday afternoon, according to Yvonne Valnea, a Toronto-based publicist for the show's promoter, Princeton Entertainment.

Valnea, who had set up the interview with Ferguson, e-mailed shortly after it was over to say Princeton had just officially told her the plug had been pulled on the program, which was to have played the John Labatt Centre on Wednesday. Refunds are being offered at point of purchase.

People who know the London entertainment scene said all along A Royal Christmas would not repeat the business it did as a sold-out show with Plummer and Julie Andrews in 2002.

The speculation is that to break even, the promoters needed to sell almost as many tickets, not quite the full 9,000, and had sold only about 5,000.

Call me a Grinch for wondering if that Royal Christmas math was going to add up, but I still went ahead with the interview, trying to keep track of the publicist's directions to address Ferguson as "Duchess" or "Ma'am" and stay away from questions about all those royal scandals affecting her ex-in-laws.

If the duchess had any sense her show would not go on, she never gave the game away. Throughout the interview, Ferguson, 44, stayed on message in shifting through the many moods of her life. She guides a children's charity, writes books, has a horse that is favoured to win an equestrian gold for Ireland and speaks for Weight Watchers.

But she won't be making her showbiz debut next week.

The e-mail shutting down A Royal Christmas capped a weird November day -- during which I also talked with Raylene Rankin of Halifax, who says the Rankin Sisters' Christmas concert on Tuesday at Centennial Hall at 7:30 p.m. is definitely on.

But Raylene's unaffected musings on the joys of singing at Christmas will have to wait for another day so we can wave farewell to Sarah's brave reflections on a life of past pain and present happiness.

"I think I've faced a great deal of my demons . . . I know that I've never been more content in my life. For once, it's nothing to do with food or a man or any other attachment. It's me, myself, that is happy," she said.

"Now I'm Sarah Ferguson, a woman in my own right . . . I am standing up in my own capacity as a single working mom with two great children, who has paid off all her debts and has got her life together and lost her weight and is standing up there with pride."

Married in 1986 after a whirlwind romance, Prince Andrew and the duchess separated in 1992. They divorced in 1996 and share joint custody of their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Last year, Ferguson moved out of the prince's home to a nearby rented cottage, which she shares with the girls.

Her passion for upholding the monarchy brought out the loyal subject in the duchess. Ferguson offered a stinging rebuke to "the betrayal of the recent weeks," when a British tabloid reporter successfully took up work as a royal footman, causing a security fright, and the late Princess Diana's "rock," butler Paul Burrell, sold more scandalous tales. Burrell enraged Ferguson's ex-in-laws, who denied his sordid sagas. "(The tabloids) must cease. They must -- and give Her Majesty support . . . she's such a wonderful woman," the duchess says.

Ahem, not that the monarch is having the duchess over with her kids at Christmas.

No, the duchess won't be spending Christmas with the Queen. Her two daughters will be off with their father and her ex, Prince Andrew, at the royals' holiday fest. The duchess herself will be at her cottage, with family.

When it came to Royal Flush, er, Royal Christmas, she said many nice things about Lansbury, Plummer and her own show business debut. The one worth repeating is the Ferguson's one-liner on Ronstadt. What about Linda, ma'am? "You can't say more than, 'What a lineup.' "

Thank you, duchess, it was a pleasure.

Come and see us some time when you don't have to sell all those tickets first.