EastEnders’ positive side

LISON Pargeter decided that if she wasn't in drama school by the time she was 16, "my life would be over". So at 15 she took matters into her own hands. She and a friend went by coach to London, where she auditioned for Mountview Drama School. "They accepted me but said you are far too young and we will hold your place," she recalls.

For Liam McKenna, ballet was what got him interested in the stage as a 12-year-old. The Royal Ballet was appearing at his local theatre in Norwich and looking for youngsters to be page boys in the production. "I remember being on stage and the overture playing for Swan Lake, the dancers jumping up and down, complaining about this and that.

I was at the front of the procession for the dead king.

Then the curtain went up and I felt this rush. I was spellbound."

Some years later the pair are united for this year's Northern Exposure new writing festival at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Not just in one production but two. Opening first is Magpie Park by Oliver Emanuel, developed during his period as BBC writer-onattachment.

In this two-hander, McKenna plays a store detective and Pargeter is Poppy, worried about her missing sister. The pair meet in a room at the Queen's Hotel where they piece together their memories of the missing Laura.

Then in Tender Dearly by Jodie Marshall, the action switches to another part of Leeds - to a shabby cellar bar where Irvine is drinking himself to death and bartender Phoebe helps him drown his sorrows.

They won't start work on Tender Dearly until Magpie Park is up and running. That's a twohander, which is new to both of them. "This one is getting your muscles in order," says Pargeter.

"It takes place in quite a lot of different time scales and various places," continues McKenna.

That means the two actors have to create everything that's not there.

"We knew we were going to be doing the two plays, which was very difficult for casting-wise because someone right for one role isn't necessarily right for both," says Pargeter, who previously worked with Playhouse artistic director Ian Brown in Alice In Wonderland in Birmingham at Christmas.

McKenna spent some time in the Leeds branch of Harvey Nichols observing a store detective to research the role.

Pargeter has to adopt a Leeds accent as Poppy, saying that "luckily our stage manager is from Leeds, so she can tell me what the right inflecton is".

They have company - two more actors - in Tender Dearly as their characters attempt to drink the bar dry. "They know it will make them sick, so it's not pretty," says Pargeter. "They laugh but look at each other and know they're dying when they're doing it."

McKenna adds, perhaps unnecessarily: "It's not a play you leave thinking I want a drink'."

He's joined a local gym to get in shape for the demands of the two plays. "But there's not been time for drinking and revelling, and I can't look too well if I'm a dying alcoholic," he says.

Pargeter has appeared in several Alan Ayckbourn plays, including Sugar Daddies at his Scarborough theatre and Damsels In Distress in London's West End. But it's as stalker Sarah Cairns, who wouldn't leave Martin Fowler alone in BBC1's EastEnders, for which she's most recognised.

Doing the Albert Square soap was only a positive thing.

"You're exposed to people in the business and they're more willing to give you meetings," she says. "There's no build-up to a career in this business any more, there's no ladder you can climb because it's been depleted by reality shows and Big Brother."

McKenna returns to the stage after a good run of TV and film - "not huge parts, but then who am I? But for a living it's been very good". Last week he managed to be in two cop shows, the first in BBC1's new Holby Blue series and ITV1's longrunning The Bill. He's also played dame, Widow Twankey, in pantomime a few years ago. "I looked like a cross between my sister and my mother in the 60s," he says.

A few years he gave up acting for teaching at what he calls a "rough school" near Gatwick. He sounds disillusioned with the education system as a result of his experiences. When a casting agent asked if he'd like to do a film with Johnny Depp, he left the classroom. Ironically, after leaving teaching he played teachers in his next two roles.

He's finding the Northern Exposure plays a good experience. "You get up in the morning knowing we're going to investigate this work," he says.

"When I did Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, I was on the set for days and days. You get paid a wonderful wad but you're just a pawn in this huge, huge game and have no say in it."

Pargeter has also done some drama teaching, as one of five actors who were group leaders at a youth drama course at a school in Hampshire over Easter.

She found the experience helpful. "You have to fall on your face in front of children. So you're less scared when you go into a job after lying on the floor pretending to be a worm," she says.

* The Northern Exposure season at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, runs from Saturday to June 30 - Magpie Park and Safe, in repertoire until June 9, Tender Dearly from June 14-30. Box office: 0113-2137700