My role of choice

THANKS to her father, Emma Gregory began acting at an early age. As young as six, she'd accompany him to rehearsals when he was involved in amateur theatre.

"It was a great education. I knew all the lines from great plays like Blithe Spirit and Priestley's work," she recalls. "Whenever anyone was ill and couldn't turn up, they let me stand in and say the lines. I grew up and fell in love with acting."

After training at LAMDA, she won the BBC Carlton Hobbs Award, which led to seven months in the BBC radio rep company. "It was a fantastic first job after drama school because it was a discipline and you got to work with some amazing people. In those days, it also gave you a full Equity card, so I had that struggle taken away immediately."

Among the dozens of plays in which she appeared was Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice, the story of a bootmaker who clashes with his three daughters over their marriage plans. In that production, Gregory played Alice. Now in a revival at York Theatre Royal, she plays the eldest Maggie, who engages in a battle of wills with her stubborn father. Taking the leading role of Hobson is Berwick Kaler, the theatre's long-time pantomime dame in his first straight play there for many years.

Gregory has no problem doing the play again because radio and theatre are so far apart, and besides, she never tires of doing great plays. Brighouse wrote the play in 1916 and set it in 1880. Gregory likes Maggie very much, considering her an extraordinary character and ahead of her time in her beliefs.

"She's a very advanced character because she represents new values. She takes it one step further and confronts her father. The fact that it's a woman doing it and she's 30 and considered on the shelf makes her quite a radical spokesperson," she explains.

Unlike other actresses who've been known to complain about wearing period costume, Gregory loves being in corsets. "They do something to your posture and breathing which is very important because in the modern day, we are so free and easy," she says.

"They make you understand the restrictions of the time. That's a journey in itself because it changes the way you breathe. You have to be aware of it in your mind."

Costumes aren't part of a radio performance, but that medium is just as much of a challenge. "They say you have to do ten per cent more because you have to do everything in the voice," she says.

She was desperate to get out of the studio and back on stage in a theatre after a year on radio. Gregory still hasn't done much TV work. "I've stopped worrying about that because theatre is so important and I love keeping it alive. It's great fun to work all over the country and all over the world," she says.

She spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including a tour to Japan, New Zealand and America, and appeared in the National Theatre's award-wining production of An Inspector Calls. But she's just as happy appearing in theatres outside London.

"Reps and Northern companies are doing stuff, some of which surpasses London," she says. "I wish more people would travel to see it, especially in the industry because they're missing a lot of good talent. They need to see what's happening."

Hobson's Choice reunites her with director Gregory Floy, with whom she worked at Colchester Theatre. He directed her in The Crucible and The Duchess Of Malfi, as well as appearing with her in The Provoked Wife. He tried - and failed - to get the rights to stage Brighouse's play there.

The production marks Gregory's debut at the York theatre, although she's worked nearby in two seasons at Alan Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. The shows included a revival of A Chorus Of Disapproval directed by the author himself.

"There's a very loyal audience and they come from all over the world. People came from New York and California to do workshops with him. They come to see Alan at work," she says.

l Hobson's Choice is at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday to April 16. Tickets (01904) 623568

Published: 26/03/2005