It's Grimm again... and it's great fun, actress Amanda Lawrence tells STEVE PRATT

AMANDA Lawrence picks up a woollen bobble hat and pulls it over her head. This is her impromptu Rumplestiltskin look. On stage she wears a beard as well. "I would love to play the pretty princess but I've not got the face for it," she says.

So as well as the man who spins straw into gold, she plays Snow White's wicked stepmother, a robber and a farm wife in Northern Stage Ensemble's More Grimm Tales.

This, as the title suggests, is a follow-up to last Christmas's hit Grimm Tales at Newcastle Playhouse. She was in that too - again playing unsavoury characters such as the witch in Hansel and Gretel, one of the sisters in Cinderella and both grandmother and mother in Little Red Riding Cap.

More Grimm Tales features six new stories from the Brothers Grimm, adapted by Carol Ann Duffy and dramatised by Tim Supple. Among them are The Musicians Of Bremen, a Yorkshire-based version of The Hare And The Hedgehog, Brother Scamp and Snow White.

As in last year's production, they're being performed in the round in a simple setting without lots of complicated sets and props. "It focuses on the storytelling," she explains. "For instance, when the moon rises someone puts a hat on a stick and raises it in the air. We use other things so the audience's imagination is excited.

"Last year was fantastic. You take a risk doing something different to big glitzy pantos which show everything. You think, 'do I need to put gags in? Do I need a popular song for the kids?' But I don't think you do. It's letting people use their imaginations.

"One minute I'm a warrior fighting on the battlefields, the next I'm a gardener planting. It's just like children. One minute they're a fighter pilot and the next a frog."

She was both surprised and pleased with the favourable response to Grimm Tales. "Last year we didn't know exactly how people would react. I could not have predicted the thrill when we were on stage and people were wrapped up in the show," she says.

The age of audiences ranged from seven upwards - "young, old, parents" - with different ages taking something different from the plays. "You can see things in different angles. It's not read in one way. It uses the audience's imagination and can be interpreted in different ways," she explains.

Devon-born Lawrence joined the Northern Stage Ensemble for Grimm Tales last Christmas, then stayed on to appear in The Ballroom Of Romance at the Playhouse after touring with the company in Animal Farm and Clockwork Orange. She'd been spotted in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard for Fecund Theatre Company.

"That was another minimalistic production - just a white square, big speakers and white drapes. It was a very good platform for me," she says. "The director and I had known each other for eight years and he knew where I was coming from. It just worked."

Hard work is something More Grimm Tales entails, with 12 performances a week. The cast has all had anti-flu jabs to ward off germs but Lawrence is also investing in a sleeping bag and pillow so she can nap backstage between performances.

Although she's talkative about More Grimm Tales, Lawrence is less sure when it comes to analysing why she took up acting. "I don't really know where it came from," she admits. "I always enjoyed playing, doing little plays at school and stuff like that. I was going to be an occupational therapist and did some auxiliary nursing. Then one day I thought I really wanted to do drama. I thought I could do drama therapy. I never thought of being an actor."

While training at Bretton Hall College in Wakefield she found she loved acting. "I thought, 'follow your heart' so at least when I was older I wouldn't sit there and think 'I never tried it'."

l More Grimm Tales is at Newcastle Playhouse from December 8 to January 20 with daytime and evening performances. Tickets 0191-230 5151