Viv Hardwick discovers that Deena Payne is still simmering about her departure from Emmerdale, but loves her current role in Calendar Girls.

AFTER 18 years in Emmerdale, Deena Payne admits she was only too delighted to strip off the guise of Viv Hope and go back into theatre. Although, taking off everything for a role in the touring version of Calendar Girls did provide a test of character.

“When David Pugh asked me I said ‘absolutely, yes’. I felt I had a handson start because I saw the Calendar Girls story unfolding in the Yorkshire Dales,” says Payne, who admits that she never saw herself as a WI type until now.

“I do like being part of a village and I think this play shows off the fact that you don’t have to be a particular type. It’s all types from different walks of life. The fact that it’s based on a true story is really great and we’re getting a really great response – in Leicester we broke box office records,” explains Payne, who lives in a village between Harrogate and Wetherby.

“I’ve been up there for so many years because of Emmerdale and we have no thoughts of coming back down South so far. It helps that all my family is based in London, but my son was just six months old when I started in Emmerdale and he’s grown up with the soap,” she adds.

So how did she cope with the now famous publicity shot of the cast with nothing more than a piano to protect their modesty?

“It was done very subtly and there was a lot of air-brushing going on, so I wasn’t too concerned about what was on show,” Payne laughs as she conducts the interview while finding her way to an Italian restaurant for lunch. She’s a regular at the gym, so wasn’t too worried about the shape she was in.

Payne’s enjoying the play’s run because of the script and the fact that the plot is set up in a tasteful and fun way with “everybody looking out for everybody else”

The conversation has to turn to her character who married Bob Hope in ITV1’s popular soap and became the village’s postmistress. “I do miss the character of Viv, but I don’t miss much else because what I’m doing now has a beginning, a middle and an end... and it’s great,” she says.

It has been widely reported that her exit last year in the dramatic fire plotline wasn’t what she had in mind. “I didn’t have to learn many words because I was doing pantomime at the time and I just thought, after 18 years, just to fall asleep on the sofa and get burnt to death, without so much as a shout for help, was a bit disappointing for people who had watched her life. For me, it was an easy option, but I was disappointed for the viewers.

But I was told what to do by the producers,”

Payne says.

So how difficult was it to go back into live theatre after such a long period in TV? “I think it was more exciting than anything. There were nerves but not counter-productive nerves. It was comfortable walking back out on stage. This cast gets on so well that it’s a joy to tour even though you don’t get home very much because I’m a hands-on mother and a home person,” she adds.

The forthcoming visit to Darlington Civic Theatre is as bit of a homecoming for her, although Payne says she feels like she is prowling the country catching up with old friends all over the country “having been locked up in a bubble for ages”. Her son is now attending York College. She laughs and says: “His name is Will, short for William, and his girlfriend just has to be Katie of course. They’ve not been together as long as the Prince and his new bride, but from well before the announcement of their engagement.

“He was a bit concerned when he heard that my TV contract wasn’t being renewed, but I told him I have two hands and a bit of a brain in my head, and that I will always find something.

I’m excited about what is out there and I don’t really mind what I do next. Even doing something like aromatherapy would make a nice change.”

Payne is positive she must have toured to the Civic Theatre before when she toured as a backing singer with Jarrow lad Alan Price. “That was many, many years ago. It was really a fill-in job, but I also toured in many musicals around the North- East. I remember being in a show in 1976 which toured to Darlington and I don’t know why I recall it but it was produced by Bill Kenwright and it’s definitely going back a few years,” she says.

So does she still sing?

“Well, I have to do a bit as Cora in Calendar Girls and it was a bit of a surprise that I still could. I start off the show by singing Jerusalem which is quite funny. The old vocal cords are still there and nobody put their fingers in their ears. Cora is an ex-rock chick so I really walked into that one, didn’t I?

􀁧 Calendar Girls, Darlington Civic Theatre, Monday-Saturday. Tickets: £14,50-£27.50. Box Office: 01325-486555 darlingtonarts.co.uk