It's the romance that has got the luvvies talking.

Heart-throb Neil Pearson has been sharing romantic nights with gorgeous Marie Helvin.

The Drop The Dead Donkey star fell for the former supermodel at a showbiz party.

And now she is rarely away from his flat in Brixton, South London.

Marie, 45, even stays there during the day when Neil, 39, goes out to work.

"She is often at his place," one of Neil's neighbours told me. "She seems very much at home, even when he is not there.

"She stays behind while he goes out and even gets the shopping in.

"They seem very much in love and are always smiling and laughing together."

Their romance first came to light when they were at the first night party for West End musical Rent last week.

Marie turned up on the arm of author Salman Rushdie, but only had eyes for Neil.

He took Marie for a twirl on the dance floor and whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

An hour later, they left the party hand-in-hand to look for a taxi home.

"It was hard to tell if they were an item or were just on the verge of becoming one," one party guest tells me.

"But there's no doubt they are together now. They see each other all the time. Marie is virtually living at Neil's pad."

The next day, they didn't surface until lunchtime when Neil had to set off for London's Lyric Theatre to give a matinee performance of the drama Closer.

Hawaiian-born Marie found fame as a model after arriving in London in 1974.

She married and split from photograher David Bailey and has kept her romances out of the limelight since she was linked to Dodi Fayed.

Neil's last relationship was with raven-haired Susannah Doyle, who played acid-tongued Joy in Drop The Dead Donkey. It ended 18 months ago.

Marie was last night staying tight-lipped about her relationship with Neil.

"I really don't want to talk about it," was all she would say.