It's right job, right time for Charlie Hardwick, the North-East actress who has decided that Yorkshire soap Emmerdale gives her 'semi-permanency'. Steve Pratt reports.

HAVING a regular job hasn't made the future any more predictable for Newcastle actress Charlie Hardwick. "You've no idea what's going to happen to your character," says the latest recruit to Yorkshire-set soap Emmerdale.

"You start to hear rumours which is a bit like going to the Spanish City and having your palm read. You only get the script the week before you start to shoot it, so you've no idea what you'll be doing."

But, as someone who's watched Emmerdale - or Emmerdale Farm as the series was called when she began viewing it in its original lunchtime slot - for years, Hardwick's more than pleased to have joined the five-times-a-week soap as Val, sister of Woolpack landlady Diane Blackstock.

She showed up sporting two black eyes which, it has emerged, weren't the aftermath of domestic violence but the result of having a nose job.

A month into filming, the actress is finding Emmerdale like the houses in Leeds - back to back. "I've done more work in this month than I have in four years," she says.

"When you get up at 5.45 in the morning and don't get back until 8.30 at night, it seems as if you have crammed in weeks of work. I knew it would be hard work because I'd read about people saying it was."

The casting director had seen her in other roles, and cast her in telly programmes before. All the same Hardwick had to go through an initial meeting, a second meeting, and a screen test with Teesside-born actress Elizabeth Estensen, who plays Diane.

"I had met her briefly once at a party in London. But I've watched the show and, hand on heart, I'm a fan. I love Liz's work. She plays Diane with such aplomb. I have a lot of respect for her. I love the scenes we have to do together," she says.

The fact that these supposed sisters have different accents was an initial worry. "I did say to the producer, 'do you want me to do my best Teesside?' and he said, 'no. I think it'll be fine'," she recalls. "I had the biggest compliment the other day when Dale Meeks, who plays Simon and is from South Shields, said he couldn't tell the difference between us."

Having spent most of her early weeks in the Woolpack, Val's now getting out and about the village. Not that Hardwick will give away any of the secrets of episodes filmed, but not yet shown.

"All I can talk about is the original brief. I knew she'd been a croupier on a cruise ship, and I think she's a bit of a classy broad. When you look you know it's someone who spends a lot of time and money with her appearance and not much time grasping reality," she says.

"Ideally, she's lying on the settee with a face pack and reading Marie Claire. I knew she was very glamorous and had fallen out with Diane and not spoken to her for ten years. I knew there was plenty of conflict.

"But I love Val. I would be delighted if she was my friend."

Having spent most of the past six years in the theatre - including a run in Lee Hall's hit play Cooking With Elvis - she was pleased to win a potentially long-running TV role. Her initial Emmerdale contract is for six months.

"With theatre, you do seven weeks work and then it's back to square one," she says. "I was sitting in my flat in London and thought, 'I'm getting too old for this. I'd like a little sense of semi-permanency for a bit. I had to wait for ages to find out if I'd got this part, and when I found out I had, I was elated."

She was nervous about joining the cast, asking to have a look round the set after filming was completed on the day before she made her debut in front of the cameras as Val.

"The actual day I started I was beyond myself. In between them shouting okay and the cameras rolling and action, it seemed to last two years. I was so nervous, but the cast were great," she admits.

She's already had her first taste of recognition during a shopping trip in Leeds. "I saw this astrakan coat in the window of Oxfam and I like a bit of retro. It was hanging in the window and I asked the assistant if I could take it off the model and try it on. She said, 'you don't half look like Di's sister in Emmerdale'. And I didn't buy the coat, it was a bit short in the sleeves."

She had imagined that being in Emmerdale would give her time to "swan about" in Newcastle and London when not working, but that hasn't worked out as they work a six-day week, including Saturday, as normal. That's also ruled out her plan to buy a season ticket to watch Newcastle matches. Not that she's complaining - "I'm too new and too excited".

* Emmerdale is on ITV1 Sunday to Friday at 7pm.

Published: 12/02/2004