SOAP star Craig Fairbrass said yesterday that it was his controversial decision to quit BBC1's EastEnders that tempted him to make his pantomime debut at Sunderland's Empire Theatre.

Fairbrass, 35, bows out of Albert Square on July 10 having decided that love rat "Dirty Dan" Sullivan was going nowhere as a character.

He will now star as the Duke of Northumberland in the Empire's panto Sleeping Beauty, from December 14 until January 7.

Millions of EastEnders' fans watched "Dirty Dan" lose his half of the Queen Vic in a rigged poker game last week.

Talking about his decision to quit Walford, he said: "My character is quite physical and knows how to handle himself, but he's never actually hit anyone. Then he was punched by Frank Butcher and I thought Dan had been allowed to become too weak."

A meeting with the production team failed to bring a change in storylines, so Fairbrass called a halt to soap stardom "where everyone thinks that they know me because I'm on TV four times a week".

He added: "I have been allowed the kind of exit where I can come back - and I will if I like the scripts."

The star of Prime Suspect, London's Burning and Hollywood movie Cliffhanger fell under the spell of the North-East while making the 1998 film Killing Time in Newcastle. He will be seen later in the year in the British comedy Weak At Denise.

Sunderland Empire's panto ticket hotline is 0191-514 2517.