North-East actor Steve Hawksby is back in the region. He tells Viv Hardwick about his latest role.

I INTERRUPT actor Steve Hawksby on his way to that rarest of events, an audition for a North-East-based TV show destined for a mainstream showing on ITV1 next year.

Thanks to the Northumberland setting of the police murder mystery adventures of detective inspector Vera Stanhope, written by Ann Cleeves, who lives near Whitley Bay, cameras are about to start rolling on this pilot programme which puts the region back on the TV map.

“I’m just on my way to the Swan Hunter yard on the Tyne where the production office for Vera has been set up,” says Hawksby, who had been expecting to talk to me about starring in Durham Gala Theatre’s pantomine Dick Whittington.

“Brenda Blethyn is playing Vera in what will be a two-hour pilot and I’m just aiming to join the cast as one of the coppers,” says the actor, downplaying the fact that he’s appeared in other high-profile North-East TV series like Steel River Blues, Wire In The Blood and Our Friends In The North.

The actor then swiftly ditched his best-boys-in-blue manner to don the panto costume of Alderman Fitzwarren, alongside Donald McBride’s Sarah the Cook, to launch Dick Whittington by rowing a boat down the River Wear in Durham City.

“Alderman Fitzwarren is a part I vaguely know from watching panto as a kid and I’m also playing the Sultan of Morocco who, although not a barrel of laughs, gives me my first chance to work at the Gala.

“I’ve worked a lot with the Bruvvers Theatre Company (which is based in Newcastle), which also performs an annual pantomime, and I’m quite used to playing in front of medium scale theatre audiences.

“It was unfortunate that the company’s theatre, The Round, which wasn’t subsidised, hit the skids. Fortunately, the company wasn’t part of the theatre itself but it was the idea of Mike Mould (who founded the Bruvvers). The theatre is now being operated by another promoter. But it was always more of a receiving house than the Bruvvers company’s own theatre.

“I was there from its conception to closure and it’s weird when you’re inside it and know that the Bruvvers had to keep touring elsewhere, meaning that The Round was relying on bringing in shows,” he says.

Asked if he still considers that its possible for an 180-seater venue, like the Lime Street, Newcastle, theatre, to succeed by promoting children’s entertainment, Hawksby replies: “I bloody well hope so. Children’s theatre is the Cinderella area in terms of reputation and it shouldn’t be.

The Round itself was the only venue of its kind between Leeds and Edinburgh.

It was built specifically for youngsters, although it was also used as a theatre space for bands and adult shows.”

Hawksby starred in Northern Stage’s pantomime Hansel and Gretel last year and played a memorable Father Christmas in a green outfit “but you wouldn’t have recognised me because I’m a bit balder and a bit younger than the character,” he laughs.

The actor was born in Benwell – “legend has it, it was in the Sally Army hospital” – and brought up in the Gosforth/Jesmond area.

“I seem to be regarded as the posh end of the Geordie market when it comes to acting because I’ve been asked if I come from Chelsea. Liverpool has also been broached… anywhere but here,” says the actor.

Among his early attempts to make a name for himself in the entertainment industry was lying on a homemade bed of nails.

“The one important thing is knowing how to space the nails out properly.

You risk getting slowly impaled if you get it wrong. I once tried to rebuild my own bed of nails and I failed miserably and ended up with one or two cuts and scrapes… but what the hell. It was actually for a North-East version of Godspell,” he adds.

■ Dick Whittington, Durham Gala Theatre, runs December 1 to January 3. Tickets: Adults £13.50- £14.50. Family of four: £48. Box Office: 0191-332-4041