She trained as a singer, but currently stars in a soap. Steve Pratt talks to Amy Nuttall about her plans for the future.

OTHER little girls asked for dolls when they wrote to Santa Claus telling him what they wanted for Christmas. Not Amy Nuttall. Top of her wish list were singing lessons.

These days she's best known not as a singer but an actress, appearing as Chloe in ITV1's soap Emmerdale for the past three years.

But Nuttall will be in good voice when she joins Peter Karrie and another soap star, Suranne Jones, alias Karen Macdonald in Coronation Street, for a musical evening at York Grand Opera House this month.

She and Karrie have worked together before, in one of the most famous stage musicals, The Phantom Of The Opera. At 16, she was the youngest person to play the leading role of Christine, the opera singer with whom the horribly-disfigured Phantom becomes obsessed.

"I was in the show for about two years. I understudied the lead role and was lucky enough to get on 30 times," she recalls.

She also appeared as Christine in the Millennium tour at Bradford Alhambra, again with Karrie in the title role.

Nuttall was attending boarding school in Hertfordshire, just starting her A-level year, when she attended The Phantom audition, more for the experience than anything else.

"I never thought I'd stand a chance. I was thinking about going away to spend another three years at drama school. Then I got the phone call to say I'd got the part," she says.

Bolton-born Nuttall says she's wanted to sing and perform as long as she can remember. "I idolised Kylie Minogue and thought I sounded like her, just as most eight-year-olds do. It was more about standing on the stage than wanting to be a pop star."

Unlike soap stars who go on to singing careers, she's done it the other way round. Her first audition post-Phantom was for Emmerdale. She'd talked to her agent about what she wanted to do next and Nuttall said she "wanted to have a bash at TV".

She still maintains her voice, going to a singing teacher in Skipton once a week.

Nuttall's three years as Chloe have flown by, she says. At the moment her character is having a quiet time, without a big storyline. "It's either all or nothing. If you have a heavy storyline, you're in every day, all day."

The difference between being in the theatre and a soap has not escaped her. "Sometimes in musical theatre it can get like groundhog day when you've been doing something day in, day out."

Being in Emmerdale has brought an unexpected bonus - romance with co-star Ben Freeman, who plays Scott. For a time their characters were also involved on screen.

"Everyone says the last thing you want is to have a relationship with someone in the series. They say it's not a good idea to mix business with pleasure," she says, although she'd obviously disagree.

As for the future, she has no idea what's in store for Chloe. As for her career, she says: "There's loads I want to do, but I'm still young. I'd like to audition for films, maybe release a record, something on the classical side, which is getting more possible now."

* Peter Karrie And Friends: York Grand Opera House on November 26 at 7.30pm. Tickets 0870 606 3595.