HERE is your starter for ten. What do Darlington and Brooklyn have in common?

Long before Posh and Becks decided to name their first-born after the place where he was conceived, the actor William Franklyn and his wife Margot Johns had a similar idea.

Thus their only child, actress Sabina Franklyn, has the middle name Darlington on her birth certificate and passport.

"I have spent my life explaining what it means," she said. "My father has a slightly wicked sense of humour," said Miss Franklyn.

She was also christened in Darlington during a subsequent visit by her parents, so there is no wonder she thinks of it rather like coming home whenever she is in a touring play which includes the Civic Theatre on its list of venues..

Local audiences will recall her appearance there in summer rep with Ian Dickens Productions which returns in early March with the thriller, Double Double.

Miss Franklyn plays the role of a wealthy widow, Phillipa James, opposite Jonathon Morris, of Bread fame.

"It's really a romantic, comedy thriller, because Jonathon's character, Duncan, is funny, witty and charming," she said.

He plays a down-and-out who is invited by the widow into her London flat to learn how to impersonate her husband so she can claim a large sum of money which he would have received had he not died three weeks before his 45th birthday.

"He bears a resemblance to her husband so she sets out to teach him how to walk and talk like him in order to get through dinner with the solicitors, then she starts to fall in love and it becomes clear she's not quite what she seems either.

"Every scene ends on an intriguing note and makes you want to find out what is going to happen next."

Miss Franklyn, who as child, wanted to be a veterinary nurse until she discovered she had no stomach for operations, will arrive in Darlington with her Jack Russell terrier, Nell, who is a seasoned green room companion.

She will also have her cheque book to hand - ready to snap up any antiques suitable for the shop she runs in Richmond, Surrey, with her mother, or at a similar outlet in Woking.

"I am moving more into antique jewellery, but in the summer I found some champagne glasses in a town outside Darlington which were just what I had been looking for," she said.

"I have always been somebody who cannot be out of work, I have too much energy and it drives me potty, so having a second string is useful."

Her mother was also an actress, and Miss Franklyn has a half-sister, Melissa, who is in showbusiness and about to appear in a play in Italy as she speaks fluent Italian. "We all speak it to a lesser extent, my father least of all. He just shouts and adds 'o' and 'a' to the endings of words," she said.

As a fourth generation actor, the theatre is in her blood. "I was on stage at four as a dancer. I did rebel a bit at the age of 12 when I thought I would become a veterinary nurse, but that didn't last."

Her first appearance in Darlington was when she was in her twenties in Move Over Mrs Markham with her mother also in the company.

Her best-known TV role is Keep it in the Family.

When Double Double ends its tour in mid-March, she will begin work on a celebration about Elizabeth I for a show in Richmond, Surrey, alongside Richard E Grant and her father, now in his seventies, who is still going strong and continuing to take on selective acting roles and voice-over work.

Double Double opens at the Civic on Tuesday, March 4, and runs until March 8; for tickets, call the box office on 01325 486555.