JOY Brook should be able to spot more than a few familiar faces in the audience when she performs in Four Nights in Knaresborough at the Civic theatre in Darlington.

It is the 32-year-old, Scarborough-born actress' first appearance on stage in the North-East, and her family are coming out in force.

"My mother is travelling to Darlington for this show and I am one of seven kids, so all their husbands and wives are coming up as well," she said.

The tour is her first theatre after a slew of high-profile TV appearances in top dramas such as Peak Practice and Dalziel and Pascoe.

A former student at the Guildhall drama school, she modestly claims that her northern roots helped to get her a foot in the door.

"I went to Guildhall for three years and when I came out it was very "hot" to be northern, for TV such as Band of Gold and Peak Practice," she said.

She first realised she wanted to be an actor 20 years ago. "I went to see Me and My Girl. It is this lovely little comedy and I burst into tears and said I have to do that. My parents already had five children in sensible jobs, so I was allowed to go off the rails a bit."

Being allowed to go off the rails ultimately led her to fame as Joanne in Peak Practice and to the part of the feisty ginger detective, Kerry Holmes, in The Bill. After a couple of seasons in the latter series, she left, just before the show's bosses ordered a massive clearout of the main characters. She has no regrets.

"When you have done something like that you have to walk away and not go back," she said. "I left in November last year and went to Australia. The Bill is huge over there so I went for six months, pottered around, did a bit of telly and a lot of interviews."

A Tottenham Hotspur fan, her favourite memories Down Under come from her appearance on a late-night football show. "I love football," she said. "They do the Premiership matches live in the middle of the night and they got me on as a guest commentator.

"My uncle, Bill Nicholson, was a Spurs player. He was in the side that did the double back in 1961. The Aussies were a bit shocked that I knew what it was all about."

Our Antipodean neighbours will not be the only audience Joy Brook shocks this year. Four Nights is a very well-written medieval drama that deals with four of history's forgotten men - the Norman knights who murdered Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Despite its period setting, the play, is written in the modern idiom, which means it is littered with expletives. The ripe language has caused some outrage, with some members of the audience walking out of the performance when the tour visited Canterbury earlier this year.

"I told my mum about them walking out and she said she thought I was doing a historical drama," she said. "She will just close her eyes."

The action all takes place in Knaresborough Castle, where the four knights have holed up after killing Beckett, to await judgement from King Henry II. Director Paul Miller slowly stokes the claustrophobic tension as the complex relationships between the men unfold.

Joy Brook plays Lady Catherine, the murderers' only link with the hostile Yorkshire outside the castle ramparts. "I am the only person who can see them because they are meant to be seeking penitent obscurity," she said. "Catherine is their only link to the outside world. It is great. I get them all to myself!"

She has to work hard to impose herself on the play, up against heavyweight performances from four very muscular actors, Nick Moran from hit British gangster comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and TV regulars Robert Cavanah, Tim Dantay and Joseph Millson.

She is full of praise for her co-stars. "If you could take bits from all four of those boys, there would be a perfect man at the end of it," she said.

"They are four completely different men, which is why I think it works, because there is no-one treading on anyone else's toes."

There was no problem with her being the only woman in the cast. "There could have been a problem if I was a "girly" girl. My character is a girly girl. She is a bit stroppy and very proud but she doesn't give them an inch. Then she gets dumped in a trout pond!"

Anyone easily offended by swearing should give this production a wide berth. But an audience that can accept the language and look beyond it is in for a treat.

The play combines violence and brutality with moments of tenderness and hope. Writer Paul Webb's script, despite its fondness for four-letter words, is darkly comic, with a tooth extraction scene more wince-inducing than Dustin Hoffman's treatment in Marathon Man and a very funny episode with a severed ear that Quentin Tarantino would be proud of.

Yet the carefully balanced writing still finds time to pose serious philosophical questions on the nature of fate. It is a play of extremes and aims to provoke an extreme response.

"There is no in between. You either love it or you hate it," said its female star.

Four Knights in Knaresborough is at Darlington civic theatre from November 6-10. Further details are available from the theatre box office on 01325 486555. Dan Jenkins