SOAP weddings spell trouble for Victoria Hawkins.

The last time she appeared in Emmerdale, she was jilted at the altar and saw her hopes dashed of becoming a footballer's wife.

Her character Sharon returned to the Yorkshire- set ITV1 soap for her mother Val Lambert's wedding earlier this week and she's set to cause chaos before she leaves again.

So former Byker Grove actress Hawkins will be back home in Gateshead to see family and friends before embarking on a round of auditions.

She has a flat in London but prefers her native North-East. "I love living up North. I'm a Northern girl through and through. I'm missing so much at home, like me mates, when I'm away," she says.

This is her second stint in Emmerdale. Last year she came for Sharon's wedding to footballer Dan McHerron, only for her dreams to be shattered when he left her at the altar.

Following her mother's wedding - which went ahead despite the bride being kidnapped and held for ransom - she's making a play for her stepbrother David, played by Matthew Wolfenden.

One thing leads to another and the pair sleep together. Hawkins found her kissing scenes with Wolfenden embarrassing because the pair became friends during her last time in Emmerdale.

"I was supposed to grab him and kiss him - and I headbutted him," she admits. "I'm very friendly with him, we got to be quite good friends after working together last year.

So it was strange kissing him," she says.

Since then, she's done a couple of plays including her first costume drama, Catherine Cookson's The Fifteen Streets on stage as part of Darlington Civic Theatre's centenary season.

She's been acting since landing a role ten years ago in Geordie soap Byker Grove. "I wrote in asking to be an extra because a friend of mine had been an extra and made a couple of quid," she says.

"Dad wouldn't let me go on a paper round so it was a way of earning money. They wrote back saying come and audition at The Mitre, where the series was made.

"I used to do school plays. We had a really good English teacher, we didn't have a drama division. I think plays are written to be performed not to be read out loud in the classroom."

She says she owes a lot to her parents, who met while they were at school. "I think I get a lot of confidence from my dad. I don't think I'd be sitting here today if it wasn't for him,"

says Hawkins. "Financially, they were there when I needed them. They've helped me out."

They were particularly pleased to see her in Emmerdale - "which has been watched in our house since I was born, so when I got the part my dad was overwhelmed."

Her dad is a plumber, now working as a national sales director, while her hairdresser mum has branched out into business, working for Northern Rock debt management.

Hawkins is only making a temporary return to Emmerdale but wouldn't say no to becoming a regular, although producer Anita Turner has told her that there aren't plans to bring back Sharon at the moment. "I can't complain at what I've had," she adds.

Emmerdale reunited her with Charlie Hardwick, who plays her screen mum Val Lambert. They previously worked together on Byker Grove. "It makes you feel you're a family. I've known Charlie for a long time.

When I auditioned, I was more confident because I knew her," she says.

There's a comedic element to Hawkins' Emmerdale role and comedy is where she feels her future lies. "I love things like Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. I think comedy is the best thing for me to do. I love things like Red Dwarf and Bottom," she says.

"I also love Holby City, so if you know anyone who can get me an audition?"

While she's back in the North-East, Hawkins is in training to take part in the Great North Run ("I'm trying to stop drinking beer") and seeing friends. "I'm getting older and past that thing of going out every weekend and getting drunk," she says.

* Emmerdale is on ITV1, 7pm, Monday to Friday.