One moment Liz Crowther was starring in Channel 5's Family Affairs, the next her TV soap career exploded, literally, as the entire Hart family were blown up in a tragic boat accident on screen.

The name of the person responsible for perhaps soapland's biggest mass execution doesn't pass her lips during the course of our conversation. She merely refers to him as "that man". He was, of course, former Coronation Street producer Brian Park who was recruited by Channel 5 to boost their two-year-old soap, and in his wisdom decided that killing off the main family would be good for both publicity and the ratings.

So Crowther and half-a-dozen of her fellow soap actors were killed off. The incident obviously upset her, although she says in that man's defence that he did send a nice letter to her and her screen husband, after the axe fell.

"It was a bit of a rollercoaster," she admits of her 500 episode stint in Family Affairs. "They said one year at the beginning, then we signed up again and it got a bit funny with that man coming in. It was all very weird, not exactly a vote of confidence." She was playing Annie Hart just three weeks after getting the job, but used that brief time to re-arrange her life, knowing that being in a five times a week soap would leave little time for much else. "I went out and bought six months supply of loo paper, washing powder - everything I could store. I bought a reliable car because I lived nine miles from the studio and had to be there at seven in the morning. And I bought a mobile phone because there was only one pay phone five minutes from the studio," she says.

"What was exciting was being in at the birth of something. We were the first programme that went out on Channel 5 and I got to go to the Baftas, although in a semi-comotose state because I was exhausted." Afterwards she returned to the stage, including two Shakespeare productions in London's Regents Park Open Air Theatre, but has not deserted TV. She'll be seen in the New Year in the next series of ITV's popular London's Burning as the love interest of Blue Watch's new station commander.

"I'm a semi-regular. I'm in eight episodes which was nice not having the huge responsibility I felt I had on Family Affairs," she says.

At present, she's back on stage at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in a revival of Noel Coward's comedy Blithe Spirit. She's playing Elvira, Charles Condomine's first dead wife whose ghost is conjured up during a seance. Earlier this year Crowther played Ruth, Charles's second - alive - wife in another production of the play in Colchester. "It's interesting to do the same play with a different director and see how many of the same conclusions have been reached," she says.

"Doing a different part in the same play is fascinating. There was only one day when I nearly said some of Ruth's lines. Libby (co-star Elizabeth Counsell) who plays Ruth has played Elvira before.

Maybe because we've each done each other's parts there's no problem." She feels more of a Ruth than an Elivra, partly because the latter "is one of those women who can twist men round their little finger, which unfortunately I've never been able to do".

As Elvira she gets to wear "the best frock I've ever worn in my life" - a chiffon and ostrich feathers creation - that really makes the ghost looks as if she's hovering around the room. She originally wanted to be a ballet dancer, moving into acting after being cast as a teenager as Lucy in a TV production of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. But she finds her dancing training comes in useful when playing a character like Elvira who needs to look as if she's gliding across the stage. The role calls for her to cover herself from breast to brow in white make-up before every performance, to achieve Elvira's ghostly look. "I've just been to Boots to buy a loofah to get at the bits I can't reach in the shower when I'm getting the make-up off," she says. "I did frighten the life out of some poor child in the Green Room the other day when I was wearing my white make-up, no wig and a bath hat. I've also appeared in the bar with white ears."

l Blithe Spirit continues at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until January 27. Tickets 0113 213 7700.

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