Peter Amory and Sally Anne Matthews are happy to star in Darlington's summer season - not least because it's a world away from soapland. Viv Hardwick reprots.

JUST how high is the cost of playing a successful soap character to the rest of an acting career? Quite high, according to Peter Amory and Sally Ann Matthews, who became household names in ITV1's Emmerdale and Coronation Street respectively.

Both are starring in plays for Ian Dickens Productions' summer season at Darlington's Civic Theatre next month and both are grateful that producer/director Mr Dickens is now operating a prolific rep-style touring system of plays.

Peter Amory opens the Darlington season with Constance Cox's adaptation of Jane Eyre. He says of his 14 years playing wheelchair-bound Chris Tate in Emmerdale: "The fortunate thing about Emmerdale is that he was a popular character, but it takes time to move away from it. I can't condemn Emmerdale for that, I can only say thank you very much, but it does get a bit annoying. There were a couple of jobs I haven't been seen for because they said it was too close to Emmerdale. That's a bit annoying, but things are getting better."

He's taking time out from TV appearances in BBC1's Casualty and ITV1's Heartbeat to play the arrogant Rochester, who pays a heavy price for falling in love with Jane Eyre.

Sally Ann Matthews admits that her seven years with Coronation Street as bolshie Jenny Bradley caused her similar difficulties when it came to avoiding typecast characters.

She's closing the season at Darlington with a starring role in Present Laughter by Noel Coward in what is seen as a close account of the performer and playwright's own life.

Of acting life after leaving Corrie in 1993, Matthews says: "Directors wouldn't see me for things because they thought I wasn't very nice because Jenny wasn't very nice and also they still thought I was 17 or 18. Now I'm youthful, but not 17 or 18."

The two appeared together in an Ian Dickens production of Trap For A Lonely Man last year at Billingham Forum and now both are excited about making their Darlington debuts.

Amory has never played a riding boots and breeches role before and is particularly worried about the scenes after Rochester is blinded in the book's infamous fire.

He says: "I've got to work out how to do this blindness on stage and one thing I'll probably use in rehearsal is a blindfold. Otherwise it could get quite interesting and I'll end up in the front row. I won't be wearing the dark sunglasses or special contact lenses - I'm trying to portray all this through character.

"The problem with the book is there's a lot of detail about Jane's life at school which, if it was included, would obviously make the play about six hours long. So it's reported, but the play concentrates on the relationship between Rochester and Jane."

Of playing the man-eating Joanna Lyppiat in Present Laughter, Sally Ann Matthews says: "You actually have to work quite hard when you read it because this is all literal and wordy. I've never done a Coward before and I get to wear a nice frock, which is always great."

Her character is one of a number of women in a 12-strong cast who are drawn to the Coward-like central figure of writer Garry Essendine She says: "Dressed in her evening dress and finery, she's there to seduce him and the end of the play is all the result of her actions. But she's a great character - very feisty - and none of the other women like her much because she's quite predatory."

Matthews is enjoying the clipped received pronunciation used in Coward's days and jokes about playing a similar role last year: "Coming from Oldham, it's not my native tongue and it was fine doing the upper class accents so long as nobody deviated from the script or dried, because if I'd had to help anyone out, I'm sure I'd probably have slipped into using Northernisms with a few Ee-by-gums creeping in."

Asked about his future plans, Amory replies: "There is absolutely zilch because this is taking all my time. I've just done a couple of episodes of Casualty playing a bent copper, which has been quite fun. In Heartbeat, I was a gamekeeper and that was great because it was all the old crew from Emmerdale and they don't work weekends."

On the same point, Matthews says: "It's been jobbing acting really since Coronation Street. I am appearing on the Catherine Tate show which is going out in July, playing a woman at a ginger refuge where people with ginger hair go so they won't be persecuted.

"I've never done a comedy show on telly before but I don't do a lot of preparation. I'm not a method actor. You do the research you need to do, like in Coward where it's a particular style, but in my case it's more acting and reacting. That's what makes acting on stage different every night because the actor opposite you might be fed up or completely over the moon about something and they do things differently instinctively and you have to be different... or the audience can laugh in a different place."

* Darlington's Summer Season is: Jane Eyre, June 14-18; I'll Be Back Before Midnight, June 21-25; Caught In The Net, June 28-July 2 and Present Laughter, July 5-9.