Craig Fairbrass has gone from TV and movie tough guy roles to laugher as one of the stars of Outside Edge at Darlington's Civic Theatre. The former EastEnder also tells Viv Hardwick that he turned down a role in rival soap Coronation Street in the past few weeks.

THE actor famous for playing Dirty Dan in EastEnders, Craig Fairbrass, came close to making a soap comeback this year in Coronation Street. He turned the role down and comedian/presenter Bradley Walsh is now appearing in Weatherfield as a Cockney charmer with a ruthless streak.

Fairbrass, who is about to appear at Darlington's Civic Theatre in the comedy Outside Edge, confessed that the character he was offered was too close to Walford's Dan Sullivan for comfort.

He says: "There's all these rumours about me going back to EastEnders and I was offered Coronation Street the other week. Well this was the role that's been taken by Bradley Walsh to appear as a guy called Vinnie who comes up to Coronation Street from London. But it was so similar to the role I played in EastEnders and if they were confident about the character working then the contract offered would have been longer. In EastEnders my character is still in Spain so you never know where it will go."

But even with current tough guy 'Dirty Den' Leslie Grantham currently blotting his copybook, Fairbrass doesn't feel he'll be rushing back to Albert Square just yet.

"There's no shortage of hard men in EastEnders," admits the actor who has hardly watched an episode since he left.

He's also got the bug for stage acting having made a successful start with Ian Dickens' company which is currently staging four summer season plays. Fairbrass plays Bob the batsman with marital problems in the comedy taken from Richard Harris' TV series.

He particularly enjoys the help and advice from co-stars like Robert Duncan, Frazer Hines and Sabina Franklyn.

"Something happens every night and, in my case, it's calling someone by a different name. I've got a scene with Frazer about an old man and a dog who bring me bad luck. I'm always using his name Dennis but for some strange reason I sometimes call him Alice, I don't know why. He gives me a strange look.

"In EastEnders you learned stuff quickly, spat it out quickly and moved on. With this you have to really digest the words and walk around with the character for three or four months. I was petrified on the first night but now I've got into it I find it quite enjoyable. The intonation on lines is really fine judgement and you can actually say 'I'll say this line so no one will laugh, but watch them laugh this time.'

"We seem to be getting a good response wherever we've gone and the audience tend to love it because it's a light-hearted English play set in the 1970s world of club cricket.

"My character Bob can be difficult because I've played those sort of people a lot... the bloke who thinks he's Jack-the-lad and has a wife and a lover and is torn between the two women.

"I have met people like him on the golf course, the romeo who feels he can pull any bird while hoping that his wife never finds out."

How much pressure is he under as the show's headliner?

"There's so many well-known faces in the show from television and some good character actors so there's an eclectic mix that works. I suppose it is pressure but we seem to be doing all right."

Fairbrass has also got a taste for comedy having just finished filming with American Pie star Chris Klein in Canada.

He explains: "I've just come back from Vancouver where I'd been shooting a film and I'd been offered a play a few times but never been able to do it because of other work commitments. I thought I'd been running away from parts like this in years past."

The Canadian movie is called The Long Weekend with Fairbrass playing Frank Silver the hardman head of an agency. The gross out movie sees him playing scenes with Klein and Brendan Fehr as brothers with totally different ideas about enjoying time on a Saturday and Sunday.

Film-wise, Fairbrass is probably best known for starring in Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone back in 1993, but he admits his favourite film is a British release in 1997 called Darklands where he plays a journalist investigating a young man's suspicious death in an industrial accident. "I love that film. It was an underground release and won a lot of awards at foreign film festivals and it had a cult following. I watched it not long ago and I'm usually quite critical of myself but I didn't think I was too bad in this one."

He's negotiating to head off to Romania to shoot another US-funded movie in October where he it will be back to the character so closely associated with BBC1 soap EastEnders and 'Dirty' Dan Sullivan.

He adds: "I'd much rather play a villain than a goodie. Reactions to me in real life are different. Some people come up and just want to chat about EastEnders and then someone comes up and says 'I saw you in that film Proteus can I possibly send you something to sign and send it back?' and a bloke came up to me the other day and knew every job I'd ever done. It was fascinating, he knew more about me than I did, even the films which only about six people must have seen."

* Outside Edge, Darlington Civic Theatre, Tuesday-Saturday. Box Office: (01325) 486 555

Published: 17/06/2004