As a North-East schoolgirl, her whole world was the stage. Now Barbara Marten has a growing family and is a familiar face on television too. She talks to Steve Pratt about her latest role.

BARBARA Marten's first taste of fame was in the pages of The Northern Echo as a teenager. The Norton schoolgirl had spent the summer with the National Youth Theatre in London and a photographer arrived at school to take a picture of the aspiring performer. She remembers both the picture, which showed her face in half-shadow like the photo of the Fab Four on the cover of an early Beatles album, and the words that accompanied it. "Her whole world is the stage", it read.

Today, Teesside-born Barbara Mason has become Barbara Marten, a familiar face on both stage and TV in series such as Casualty, The Bill and Darlington-set Harry.

She's recently moved to York, where she's rehearsing for a Theatre Royal production of Caitlin, a play about Dylan Thomas's wild and wilful wife written by Marten's partner of 25 years, Mike Kenny.

Despite that early newspaper publicity, her acting career stalled after drama school. She'd originally been inspired at her all-girls school in Norton by a new teacher, who taught the odd couple of subjects of domestic science and drama.

Lots of choral speaking in local speech and drama festivals was followed by an invitation from the National Youth Theatre for pupils to join. "The North-East division auditions were held at Sunderland Empire. We arrived and they were running behind time, and said they wouldn't be able to see us," she recalls. "My teacher said, 'well, Barbara has gold medals for Bible reading' and someone told her, 'I don't think they'll want someone to read the Bible'."

She was accepted anyway, spending several summers in London with the company. A period of studying at Stockton and Billingham Technical College was followed by three years at a London drama school. "I was really quite unhappy there. It didn't fulfil my expectations at all. When I left I said I didn't want to be an actress at all," she says.

"I think there was the thing about being a small fish in a big pond. I know other people on the course had a ball, but it didn't help me at the time. I left and messed about for a while, did some travelling, and then trained as a drama teacher."

She met partner Mike Kenny while studying at Birmingham, then taught for two years before returning to acting - as well as researching, writing and set building - with Theatre in Education companies and community theatre.

When she became pregnant with their first son - the couple now have three, aged 23, 13 and nine - she decided she couldn't continue "going around in a van and putting sets up" and began doing radio. When theatre and TV roles followed, she was finally the actress she'd dreamed about becoming at school.

After moving to York in September, she talked to Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden about working there. She'd previously lost out to another actress when Caitlin was premiered in Cardiff, although she staked her claim to play the role at some point. "I brought the play in here," she says, indicating the Theatre Royal where we're talking. "Damian said he was going to Japan and would read it on the plane. When he returned, he said he hoped I didn't mind but he'd put Caitlin in the programme for this year."

This is her first theatre work for six years, since appearing at London's National Theatre in Shared Experience's production of War And Peace. Now that her youngest son is nine, she feels able to go away from home.

"I've only been doing radio and TV," she says. "In the last year I've really wanted to do theatre again. I love telly and radio, but there's nothing like doing a play."

She deliberately avoided the original production of Caitlin. "The minute I knew I wanted to do it, I said I didn't want to see it because it's hard to eclipse that from your mind, particularly if it's been done very well," she says. "It will be different, of course, because she's a completely different actress to me and we'll bring different qualities to it."

Marten has read much about Caitlin and really likes her now, while recognising she'd be a difficult person to know. "She has, and it comes up again and again, this wild child spirit and was brought up in a quite unconventional, bohemian life. They were kind of Irish gentry, but she was brought up in Hampshire," she explains.

"She was going to be a dancer, only never quite made anything of it. That was her outlet, the artistic company in which she moved. With Dylan, it was drinking all day, moving from pub to pub with writers and musicians. It was about drink and temper and fighting. They used to physically fight, fists and teeth. She was enormously frustrated by small town life and Dylan was prodigiously unfaithful to her. He did say he'd rather sleep with Caitlin, but if she was unavailable, there was nothing to stop him exercising his freedom to do what he wanted.

"I do believe they loved each other, that they had enormous fights when they didn't live up to each others' expectations. She did think his poetry was something special, and created the climate for him to write."

Marten is loving living in York, away from a big city like Leeds. "I really like the size and scale of York. I love cycling along the river. It feels much less stressful, and something reminds me of Teesside," she says. "It's great for the kids. They can go round on bicycles."

Trips to London to do TV usually last no longer than three or four days before she misses her life and her kids back up North. For the moment, she's only concerned with Caitlin. "That's my project for the moment. It's a big thing, a big focus. There's a lot of energy going into this production," she says.

* Caitlin runs in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, from February 12 to March 6.

Tickets (01904) 623568.