Being written out of EastEnders as suffering single mum Lisa has prompted Lucy Benjamin to look at work offers that don't involve pantomime. She tells Steve Pratt that York Theatre Royal's The Pocket Dream was the first stage role that really appealed to her.

IF IT had been left to actress Lucy Benjamin, Lisa would probably still be shuffling around Albert Square, baby Louise in her arms as she lurched from one crisis to another. The choice wasn't hers, however, and bosses of BBC1 soap EastEnders decided that her character - whose claim to fame included being the guilty party in the who shot Phil Mitchell? scandal - would be written out.

Not only did the actress have to keep mum about shooting Phil amid much media speculation, but also stay silent about her temporary return to the soap for a final tug-of-love showdown with him.

Benjamin is honest enough to say she didn't want to leave but appears to harbour no grudge, displaying a refreshing honesty and common sense on the subject. The decision was made by producers and she accepted it without moaning.

"We all like the security and I was getting some really great storylines. But it was taken out of my hands," she says, during a lunchtime break from rehearsing a play at York Theatre Royal.

"Now I can do other things and it's given me a profile. I had nothing but a great time in EastEnders. The door has been left open. At the moment I'm leaving it at that."

What she doesn't miss is the sheer slog of shooting a four-times-a-week soap. You film six days a week and it doesn't finish when you leave the studios because your personal life isn't your own either. Benjamin's was even more complicated than most as she was going out with Steve McFaddden, the actor playing her TV lover Phil Mitchell. The relentless schedule and constant line learning can get an actor down. "You could work until 7.45 and the minute you walk through the door at home you have to lock yourself away for two to three hours learning lines for the next day, especially if you were featured as heavily as I was for such a long time. I felt I wasn't getting a break," she says.

"You can't really mind because it's what most of us would like to be - seen on the box."

She's happy to say that public interest in her isn't so great now she's left in Walford. Before, she couldn't go to a club or a bar without her picture being plastered over gossip columns and magazines.

"It's backed off to a degree, which is nice. It's not quite so in-my-face any more. I can walk along with a cap on and people's don't necessarily notice me," she says.

Her arrival in York didn't go unnoticed. "The people in the lovely Italian sandwich shop next door to the rehearsal room spotted me immediately," she reports.

She's in town to appear in The Pocket Dream, a comic take on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by Bafta winner Elly Brewer and comedienne Sandi Toksvig. Benjamin plays stage manager Jo, who's alarmed to find most of the actors absent as the curtain rises on a performance of The Dream at York Theatre Royal. The show must go on with backstage and front of house stage forced to battle on gamely.

It's nine years since she did "a real play", although the last two Christmases have seen her in pantomime.

"Jo is a huge part and hectic, physically," she says. "She plays Hermia, Puck and Snout as well as telling people what to do. I wouldn't want to be a stage manager. They get loads of flak, although I'm quite bossy so I might do quite well."

Doing Shakespeare and working in York, both for the first time, were twin attractions. She's rejected other theatre offers, apart from panto, that have come her way since EastEnders.

"I've had mostly theatre interest and didn't see anything that really appealed to me until this landed on my doorstep. I thought it was a very clever and funny script, and was a challenge," she says.

"I've never done Shakespeare. I studied it slightly but the theatre school I attended was more focused on musical theatre. I thought that was the direction in which I was going to head because that's the way I started out, in musicals like Annie. I thought I would end up being a chorus girl."

When she left Redroofs stage school, she did more straight TV. "I got to 18 and was not hitting the height requirements for dancers. I was being sent up for more TV and got Press Gang. Dancing and singing fell by the wayside," she says.

She still watches her former soap whenever she gets the chance, just as she did before she joined the cast. EastEnders has been criticised of late for poor storylines and ratings although she thinks the dip is only temporary. "It's because Coronation Street is so good at the moment. EastEnders is not at its best," she says. "It happens all the time over the year. It will come back. I am very loyal to the show. It was a massive part of my life."

Her next TV appearance is in another long-running BBC1 drama Casualty. She has a role in the two-part opener of the new series, as a women whose children go missing and grandfather is taken ill. At least in The Pocket Dream, she's assured of a few laughs.

* The Pocket Dream runs at York Theatre Royal from June 28 to July 17. Tickets (01904) 623568.

COMPETITION

LUCY Benjamin is among the stars of the space drama Jupiter Moon, which launched on BSB's Galaxy Channel in March 1990. The show - billed as "science possibility rather than science fantasy" - was screened three times a week for nearly a year before BSB's merger with Sky. Now the first 11 episodes are released on a double DVD disc by Oracle Home Entertainment at £24.99.

7DAYS has three DVD prizes. To enter: What was the first name of Lisa's baby in EastEnders? Send the answer, together with your name and address, on a postcard to: Jupiter Moon Competition, 7DAYS, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. Closing date is noon on Monday.

Published: 17/06/2004