Playing Eva Cassidy is a huge challenge. But Sarah Jane Buckley might still be tempted to return to the soaps, she tells Viv Hardwick.

SARAH Jane Buckley is appearing in her saddest role to date – sadder even than being written out of TV’s Hollyoaks in 2008, one suspects – as she plays tragic singer Eva Cassidy.

The 40-year-old performer, from Cheshire, took on the role from Loose Women panellist and TV vocal coach Zoe Tyler at short notice. She raced through a week’s rehearsal in time to open the tour of Over The Rainbow, The Eva Cassidy Show, at South Shields, last Saturday.

Next week, she plays three days at Darlington Civic Theatre and says of taking on the role of Cassidy, who died of cancer at 33: “It was so sad that she never knew her fame and sad she never realised how amazing she was. I originally auditioned for something else and the Theatre Productions company asked me to fill in for Zoe Tyler because she had family commitments.”

Talking during a break on the last day of rehearsal – alongside C4’s Musicality winner Donna Hazelton – Buckley is “in mid-doughnut” as she discusses going full circle in a 20- year career which saw her tour to Darlington in Joseph as the narrator, when she was 22.

“My background was a lot of singing before I did Hollyoaks (as Kathy Barnes) so really it’s nice to be back doing something so challenging.

I was queen of touring, but I haven’t done that for a while and now I’m doing it again it’s going to be a massive shock.”

She toured to the Civic last year with The Tart and the Vicar’s Wife and says “there was a little drama for that because Bernie Nolan only lasted one day and Linda Armstrong took over very gallantly – and I feel like I’m doing the same thing myself.

“I did know a lot about Eva Cassidy already because I’m a massive fan. It’s great to be able to play her, but it’s also a challenge because her vocal range is enormous. Her encompassing voice has been the hardest thing to find in my own voice. To copy somebody like this is very difficult.”

The title song is considered quite daunting for singers, but Buckley is in her element because it was her own favourite piece for cabaret.

“That was always my swansong, but to sing it as Eva Cassidy is a different scenario and I’ve had to train my voice to do this with her trills and little notations of music. She was a singer/guitarist and very much played her voice as well as an instrument.

She breathed in unusual places, while a straight singer doesn’t do that. I’ve been doing pantomime over Christmas and I’ve been driving everyone mad by playing Eva Cassidy albums all the time. They wanted to kill me because this isn’t the happiest of musicals,” Buckley says.

THE musical stays true to the story of the singer, with producer and director Stephen Leatherland travelling over to the US to meet the Cassidy family. But Buckley admits that the death scene is troubling her.

“It’s quite harrowing. You just have to do what you do in a new role and most TV characters you play tend to be strange. I’m not really sure how Eva is going to affect me until I start playing the role,” she says about her six-week run.

Another anxiety Buckley expresses is that fewer theatres are taking a chance on running shows for a full week, relying on one-nighters and part weeks at present.

“It’s a sign of the times and really sad. We always used to tour musicals for a week, but that doesn’t seem to exist in the same way now. It just used to be comedians and concerts who did one-nighters. I know a few producers who are facing this option, but if you can fill a theatre then a show is still worth doing. But we have to ride the times like everyone else,” she says.

Of Hollyoaks, she says: “I didn’t want to go and I was going to work happy. Hopefully, Coronation Street or Emmerdale will come calling soon…bring it on.”

■ Over The Rainbow: The Eva Cassidy Story, Darlington Civic Theatre, Monday-Wednesday. Tickets: £14.50 to £18.50. Box Office: 01325-486555, darlingtonarts.co.uk