From Soapland to the '70s

WHERE have the past five years gone since engaging actor Andrew Lynford quit the role of Simon Raymond in EastEnders and began a TV presenting and stage career?

Well, more people will have missed him back in 1999 than will mourn the passing of Dirty Den Mark Two next year for a start.

Lynford appeared in the BBC soap when the audience could be counted in tens of millions. And the 31-year-old Essex-born actor freely admits he's not one of the six million still following the more wearisome adventures of Walford folk.

Currently, Lynford is reviving the 1970s comedy 2+2 Make Sex by Richard Harris and Leslie Darbon, which plays at Billingham's Forum Theatre from tomorrow until Saturday.

"The title is slightly more racy than you might think. It gets about as sexy as me wandering around in my underpants for about half of the play. That's about as bad as it gets," he laughs.

The early work by Harris, who went on to create comedies like Outside Edge, once had the West End cast of Patrick Cargill and Richard Beckinsale.

Lynford feels that, despite having to wear a 1970s-style wig, the play was best kept in that era rather than suffer updating.

"Issues like sex therapy and the midlife crisis became much better known in the 1970s and you just couldn't update the elements of farce because things like today's mobile phones and emails would make the plot almost implausible. In those days, people were tied to one phone in the hall and that allows the confusions and escapades to happen."

On his career since EastEnders, he says: "Everything goes so quickly but I think that's a reflection on the fact that I've been so busy. Work has been coming in thick and fast, so I'm not going to complain."

On the stage, Lynford has see-sawed between a musical called Electric Lipstick, which was pulled just before week-long runs at York and Sunderland, and playing the leading man in adaptations of Agatha Christie's murder mystery A Murder Is Announced and Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel.

He says: "Electric Lipstick was getting good reviews when we got wind of the fact that the backers couldn't come up with the cash to keep it running. You can't help feeling responsible because your name's above the title. But it's funny how things happen. I thought it was going to be six months and a big tour but the moment it was pulled, my agent got a phone call concerning another musical (Leader Of The Pack) and I won a TV contract as a result of that. So things do happen for a reason and although there was disappointment and frustration, the outcome was actually quite good."

With the Agatha Christie play, the curtain was actually held at the Blackpool Grand because so many senior citizens were queuing around the building for a matinee performance.

"Theatre is alive and kicking if you present the audience with the sort of things they want to see. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but people do want to buy the right kind of goods," Lynford says.

His stage work even survived the supposed "curse" on important productions at Darlington Civic Theatre when actress Beatie Edney was injured in a road crash on her way to the North-East for the opening night of My Cousin Rachel. Just one performance was cancelled as understudy Rachel Rhodes came to the rescue.

"I see you're picking up on all the hiccoughs in my career. I hope you're going on to say that the tour was a big success and that Beatie Edney made a full recovery" he jokes.

However, despite it being one of his most difficult weeks so far, Lynford's memories of the Civic are all good.

"The Friends of the theatre look after you so well and do all the old-fashioned things like putting a bowl of fresh fruit in your dressing room. They keep many wonderful traditions going. So I felt quite well looked after, even though it was a horrendous week as far as the show was concerned."

Last time he was interviewed in The Northern Echo, Lynford was keen to put EastEnders behind him. Has he managed to do that?

"Well no, the role of Simon is something I'm pleased and proud to have done. I can't comment about the drop in audiences. I feel so remote from the programme because I don't watch it through spending most nights on stage or needing early nights when I'm on telly myself.

"The way it effects me now is that lots people have come up to me in the last six months to ask when I'm going back because EastEnders needs its old characters. All I know is people there work hard under difficult circumstances. I think the problem with a lot of the soaps is the lack of anticipation now because they're on all the time. I remember when we were having record audiences that it was being suggested that Coronation Street had had its day and should be laid to rest. Everyone was pro EastEnders and anti Corrie. They had crisis talks and brought in new characters and now, five years on, it's EastEnders in trouble."

* 2+2 Make Sex, Billingham Forum Theatre, Tues-Sat. Box Office: (01642) 552663.