The actress preparing to play Billy Elliot's gran in the West End musical talks to Steve Pratt about becoming a Geordie for the stage run. At 72, Tessa Worsley is still ready for a fight in a revival of The Beauty Queen of Leenane at York's Theatre Royal.

TESSA Worsley has fallen out of her chair and is lying on the floor when I arrive. Nothing to panic about, it's all part of the play she's rehearsing. The fight director is choreographing a dramatic moment from The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, Martin McDonaugh's award-winning play being revived at York Theatre Royal this month.

Picking herself up and taking a seat, Worsley - whom people tell me is 72 though she doesn't look it - explains that she's in good hands as the fight director worked on the Brad Pitt movie Troy and has taken fight courses at Rada.

"There's a difficult violent scene that has to be choreographed," she explains. "We've just been working out the technicalities. It's fantastic to have someone as good as him coming and teaching us so we don't hurt ourselves."

Worsley has the financial problems of a Newcastle theatre to thank for her appearance in York. At the moment She should have been rehearsing Billy Elliot The Musical for its Christmas run at the Tyne Opera House in advance of the London West End staging.

The North-East season was cancelled when the venue ran into difficulties. So she's free until December, when rehearsals begin in earnest for Billy Elliot The Musical. She plays the grandmother of the would-be ballet dancer in the stage version of the hit film that boasts music by Elton John. Director Stephen Daldrey and writer Lee Hall, who worked on the movie, are fulfilling the same duties on the theatre production.

Worsley explains that she became involved in her first major West End musical by accident through a friend, the show's casting director. "They were doing a piece for the backers and technical people. The woman who was going to read the grandmother was making a film and had to catch a plane," she says.

"My friend asked me to read it, so they could do the reading round a table. At the end Stephen Daldrey asked me if I could sing for him. I went over the song a couple of times and then sang. Then he asked me if I danced and did tap. 'You can learn, can't you?', he said."

After working with the musical director and choreographer, she was offered the part. She'll be working with three Billys as three youngsters have been cast to share the role. She's also met the original screen Billy Elliot, Billingham-born actor Jamie Bell, recently at a party.

She has two weeks break after the York run before starting rehearsals on the show, which begins previewing in London in April for a May opening.

Before that, she'll be appearing in The Beauty Queen Of Leenane for the second time, having played old Mag Folan in a production in Stoke two years ago.

The play, set in rural County Galway in the hills of Connemara, charts the relationship between old Mag and her spinster daughter Maureen, who's known no other life than looking after her sick mother. Manipulative Meg's latest act of interference in Maureen's love life proves the final straw.

She first saw the play in the original London production, which she remembers as "an amazing experience". She has also used the script in lessons at Rada. "I used to teach sight reading and found one particular scene, where there are two younger people involved, that's a fantastic sight reading exercise. And if you use it, you have to read the play," she explains.

Repeating the role is like starting afresh, and not just the fact that Stoke was performed in the round, while York has a proscenium arch. "What I've discovered is it's typical of an actor's life - the play is very important when you're doing it and then you move on to other things and other work and that play goes out of your head," she says.

"Doing with a different director and cast, I've been amazed how different it seems and how much I've discovered about the old lady again. I just find myself saying, 'Why did I do it that way?' Because you're acting with different people it does make a huge difference.

"I've never done a play twice before and I realise it's the most wonderful acting exercise."

She finds the play very macabre and chilling, but also very funny. As far as she's concerned old Mag is a monster. "She's selfish and scheming. She's got quite a lot of wit, but is absolutely terrified of life and being left alone," says Worsley.

"I found myself halfway through rehearsal saying, 'I don't like this woman'. Coming to the end of rehearsals I realise she's like so many people in life, she's a tragic figure and so is her daughter."

She's the only member of the cast who isn't Irish, finding that her fellow actors have helped her get the accent. Worsley will also take the opportunity while she's appearing in York to travel further North to hear first hand the Geordie accent she'll adopt for her Billy Elliot role.

* The Beauty Queen Of Leenane: York Theatre Royal from November 9 to 27. Box Office: (01904) 623568.

Published: 04/11/2004