JEFFREY Holland laughs about linking two of the UK’s favourite TV sitcoms of all time, Dad’s Army and Hi-de-Hi, as a result of taking a starring role in classic theatre mystery The Ghost Train, which opens a two-play summer thriller season at Darlington Civic next week.

“The Ghost Train was famously written by Arnold Ridley in 1923, who was in Dad’s Army as Private Godfrey. I met him when I joined the cast of the theatre tour of Dad’s Army in 1976 and played various roles including that of Private Walker,” says Holland, who has been delighted that his Hi-de-Hi role of Spike Dixon has enjoyed a repeat run on BBC in the past few months.

“I know that Arnold was proud of his play and was the most successful one he wrote. And it still works 90 years on. There have been quite a few versions (including TV, film and radio), but the best way to start is to be truthful to the script.

“Arnold wrote this as a serious thriller and you have to put your tongue a bit in your cheek here because people don’t speak like that anymore. ‘I say, now look here, I’m deuced angry’. People don’t speak like that anymore except in this play. If you play it straight it works. There are so many thrills and spills in this play that you jump out of your seats two or three times. It really does work.

“There are a few gags in there which Arnold wrote in. The wrong way to do it is to send it up because it’s a period piece... and it’s easy to do because this is such a stylised piece,” says Holland.

Ridley used to hate that treatment of his work. “He couldn’t stand the fact that people sent up his play. We don’t and I think Arnold would be very proud of this production because we play it straight down the middle and all the jumps and bumps are in there, until there’s a nice twist right at the end.”

Holland plays the Station Master who sets the scene by warning a collection of stranded passengers that anyone who sets eyes on a ghostly train that haunts the remote line will face certain death.

“I tell the story of the terrible haunting following a terrible accident when people were killed. Then things transpire later which are all laid at the feet of the ghost story. So I play a grizzled old character Saul Hodgkin here, which I do with relish. I love this part and my wife, Judy Buxton, is also in the play and she plays the spinster and her character gets scared to death,” he says.

Modest Holland pays tribute to the production company and founders of Talking Scarlet Theatre, Patric Kearns and Jane Shakespeare, for a successful run of The Ghost Train, which ends its theatrical journey at Darlington.

“This has been going on since January and been a good block of work for the cast. I’m really looking forward to Darlington because we always stay in the same digs and we’ll have a few jolly evenings in their company. We love the town and are looking forward to this very much,” he says.

The actor isn’t aware of Darlington Civic’s reputation for ghosts and is intrigued to hear about reports of former owner Signor Pepi’s dog or figures of women being reported in the past.

“There does seem to be a white lady or a grey lady at older venues and it’s wonderful stuff. I think it’s great that we’re taking The Ghost Train to a haunted theatre, although I can tell you that we don’t tend to play jokes on each other about this,” says Holland.

After Hi-de-hi, he went on to star with Paul Shane and Su Pollard in a further David Croft and Jimmy Perry sitcom You Rang, MiLord? And and then Oh, Doctor Beeching!

“Hi-de-hi has just had a repeat run on BBC2 and I’ve had some lovely feedback from people who say it stands up as strongly as it did in the 1980s. I’m getting fan letters from kids who weren’t born then. I think because it was set in the 1950s which makes it timeless really,” he says.

We are talking on June 19, which would have been the late Paul Shane’s birthday and the He-di-Hi cast had a reunion dinner the night before.

“There was Ruth Madoc, Sue Pollard, myself, Barry Howard and the Webb twins (Barry and Tony). It was really rather nice and we met in a West End restaurant and there were fans of the show present and we had our photographs taken at someone’s birthday party. It was really rather nice. They don’t make sitcoms like that anymore sadly. It’s a shame, but they don’t. I was so lucky to have been part of it. We had the best of it,” Holland says.

And if he had been able to offer advice to the young actor playing Spike all those years ago?

“Go and work at the tax office,” laughs Holland, who will be taking his one-man show called And this is my friend Mr Laurel, based on the life of favourite North-East son Stan Laurel, back on tour after Edinburgh in August.

n The Ghost Train, Darlington Civic Theatre, Tuesday, June 30 to Saturday, July 4. Box Office: 01325-486555 or darlingtoncivic.co.uk