Terry Burns wanted to leave but he didn't ask to die. The makers of Channel 5's weekday soap Family Affairs decided his fate. "I was bashed over the head with a candlestick in the kitchen," he recalls, making his TV death sound like the Cluedo board game.
"It wasn't my choice to be murdered but they felt it was a good storyline to go out on. It was good to do as it was always an ambition of mine to die on screen."
Burns joined the cast of the soap straight from drama school and stayed nearly two years. As Josh, he was married to Yasmin, ran off to Greece with Julie-Ann and then got together with her sister Siobhan, who dumped him on learning that Yasmin was pregnant with his child.
And there's more: he became obsessed with getting Siobhan back and when he found out she wasn't really married to Pete, he confronted him, resulting in Josh's death.
"It was the right time to leave," says the 26-year-old actor, who appears in Harrogate Theatre's world premiere staging of Terry Pratchett's Truckers this month.
"It was my first job, I'd learnt a lot, had a great time and earned some money. I wanted to spread my wings, having joined Family Affairs straight from drama school. It was a real baptism of fire."
The hours were often long and demanding. "If you do a big storyline and are in most scenes, you're talking about going in at 7.30 in the morning and, as I didn't live that close I was getting up at half-five. I was on set at eight and worked through, sometimes to eight or nine at night," he says
"You're dealing with 15 scripts at any one time. It's real factory television and frustrating at times."
Truckers, adapted for the stage by Bob Eaton and directed by Harrogate Theatre artistic director Rob Swain, is a challenge as it combines live action with film and special effects.
The production recreates the world of the Nomes, small creatures who live under the floorboards in a department store. When they learn the place is due for demolition, they plan a great escape into the big wide world outside.
London-born, Essex-raised Burns plays Angalo, a posh Nome from the haberdashery department. He's the first creature from the outside world a group of Nomes meet when they arrive at the store.
"My character is a bit of a toff. He's very curious and very courageous," he says.
"I've never read any Terry Pratchett books before. Now I'm involved in this play, I've the book and am in the process of reading the other two in the series. The play's very witty, essentially for children but with stuff for adults too."
A longer-than-usual rehearsal period was needed because of the mix of live action and film. The cast of eight had to rehearse in front of screens showing film shot for the production.
"It's a very technical show. The difficult thing is bringing in the film bits. We play to the screen quite a lot. The idea is that Nomes are four feet high and everything on the screen is much bigger. When it works, it looks great," he explains.
"There's music too and we have to time everything to fit in with what's going on behind us on the screen.
"There are giant props as well, bananas, screwdrivers, lamps. I've never done anything quite like this before. It's a real multi-media undertaking."
Since quitting Family Affairs nearly two years ago, he's been working on stage, in Joe Orton's comedy Loot in Exeter and a thriller season at Nottingham.
l Terry Pratchett's Truckers: Harrogate Theatre, March 15 to 30. Tickets 01423 502116.
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