Knickers with pockets and sexual secrets

SOME people in Newcastle have complained about the use of The Vagina Monologues as the title for a show. The show is Irina Brown's creation, based on true stories of sex and sexuality, and stars actress Mina Anwar.

Anwar is happy to discuss the show... she just doesn't want to talk about anything else.

A fairly sycophantic observation to the woman who achieved stardom as PC Maggie Habib in TV's The Thin Blue Line about having achieved so much in 33 years of life, produces a spiky response. "How do you know how old I am?"

The conversation then runs:

"Your website gives your birthday as September 19, 1969."

"How do you know that?"

"It's on your semi-official website."

"That shouldn't be on there."

"You're not embarrassed about your age."

"No, I'm 34 this year."

"I can tell you I'm 50 and pretty ancient."

"You're not ancient, my sister's nearly 50 and she's not ancient."

"Well, she probably looks a lot better than I do."

At this point it seemed much easier to discuss her role in The Vagina Monologues at Newcastle's Theatre Royal where she will share the stage with Sorcha Cusack and Alison Newman, a chain-smoking lesbian agent in ITV1's Footballers' Wives, who replaces Gwyneth Strong.

Of the production's title, Anwar comments: "No, they can't change the title - that's the whole point. The people who find it challenging are the ones who will come and see it out of curiosity, or they will just be put off. They shouldn't be put off by the title. It's just a word, a medical word. People are very strange.

"I'm asked to do the show every now and again because they have a pool of actors. I did it last year in the West End because I really enjoyed it when I went to see it beforehand. It's not just an acting exercise, it's quite challenging as well because you have to be yourself and I find it very enlightening, very funny and really enjoyable to do. I quite like to do theatre where people are slightly scared of the title."

There have been sell-out shows so far in Manchester and Sheffield but Anwar accepts that "people are more reserved the further you go up North".

"These are real women's stories. Some are very funny, some are moving and some are dark, but I think the watcher will relate in some way to what we're talking about.

"It's just subjects that people don't normally talk about openly. We are not on a crusade or determined to be rude but it is a subject matter that people don't normally discuss. That's sex, sexuality and people as well. The audience will find it a great journey."

The subject of crusading seems an ideal opportunity to ask Anwar about her company, Aware International, launched in 1999 to highlight the problems of unsafe sex.

Aware International offered a range of underwear, including a line called Secretpockets, aimed at the discreet use of condoms. Profits were intended for Sexually Transmitted Disease clinics around the world. She even modelled the underwear herself. Designs were called The Force for women while men were encouraged to try "pocket" lingerie called Downunderwear.

"I don't want to talk about that because that business doesn't exist any more," says Anwar tersely. "So I'm not on a crusade of any kind."

Later investigation showed that principal shareholders Mina Anwar and Ballykissangel actress Dervla Kirwan were named when Aware International dissolved the business in February.

Anwar is a Pakistani Muslim from Blackburn who has become an icon to young Asian women. "I suppose I am," she says. "I'm not shy of what people think about what I do and I choose very carefully. I like to think of myself as having great integrity about what I do. Some people aren't going to like it, but I want to stay true to myself."

Strangely, she initially denies there was any protest about her appearing semi-naked in a BBC film called Flight by Tanika Gupta before admitting that "one young man" had a verbal outburst at the London Film Festival.

"I think it was to do with race rather than sex," she finally accepts. "It's very sad that every Asian actor has to somehow feel that they have to carry a political banner when actually we should be past that and show ourselves in a positive light like any other culture. We go through birth, marriage and death as well. It's time, in the 21st Century, to open our minds up. That's why we are in the middle of a war, because people are ignorant about other people's cultures.

"The more you can open the dialogue between the generations, the better. I'm second generation, but the first generation will only react to what they know and we don't have to frown on them because they are not as progressed as we are."

So how do her own parents react to the work she does?

"Are you going to talk about the Vagina Monologues or are you going to talk about me? I don't do many interviews, that's why people do tend to speculate about me. I tend to be a very private person. People can write things but it doesn't necessarily mean I've said them."

A recent comment attributed to her was that she didn't mind being described as Indian or Pakistani. Is that true?

"Well, no, that's absolutely correct. Did I say that? Yes, I don't know when that was, but where my parents were born used to be India. And when the border moved they were Pakistani. So if my parents don't have a problem with that then, in that context, at some time in history we were all something else. I'm a Pakistani and I was born in this country, but at some point my family was something else. Sometimes people standing up for what they believe and what they think is their boundary is what creates strife in the world."

Anwar has made a new six-part Radio 4 drama series called Artists which is currently running on Wednesday mornings and just finished appearing in ITV1's The Bill as Dr Sandra Malik. So will we be seeing her on TV again soon?

"I can't really talk to you about that... but if it comes off it will be massive," she says.

* The Vagina Monologues, Newcastle Theatre Royal, April 14-19. Box Office: (0870) 905 5060