GILLY Tompkins returns to York Theatre Royal tonight, having played picket-line miner's wife Vera in Damian Cruden's revival of Brassed Off in February.

This time she is appearing in the wildest of wigs in Halifax company Northern Broadsides' touring production of She Stoops To Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith's 1773 comedy of manners, class clashes, chaotic courtship and dysfunctional families.

Relocated from the West Country to the north of England, Goldsmith's excitable drama is full of larger-than-life characters, outrageous frocks, mischief, mayhem and misunderstandings, all of which apply to Gilly's socially ambitious Mrs Hardcastle, a gauche woman as loud as her animal-print attire.

"It's a bit of a Marmite show. It's relentless, and with the extremes of the characters, if you don't like them at first, you ain't gonna like it, but if you do, you will," says Gilly.

"Initially, I was a bit scared because Mrs Hardcastle is such an iconic role: Miriam Margolyes, Penelope Wilton, Sophie Thompson last year; they've all played her, and you think, 'oh my God, this character is hated'. She's enormous on the page and I thought, 'do I go against that?', but then I got the costume and the wig and Barrie [Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter] said, 'You've got to fill it'!

"You can't apologise for how she changes opinion mid-line. She's just great fun to play. And no, I didn't pick the clothing. It was given to me. If you're given a costume like that, you think, 'Oh, that's fun'. Then you get that wig, and you think, 'Is that fun? No, it's scary', but you get used to the wig; you get used to the costume."

Gilly made a crucial decision as to how to "fill" Mrs Hardcastle's role.

"The more I do to really enjoy playing her, the more satisfying it is," she says. "If I try to give her a psychological subplot, no, it doesn't work! I've just got to proclaim! You've got to commit to the scene, reveal the truth of it, and it takes a lot of confidence to do that. She makes people gasp. She's outrageous and I don't think I've ever played a character quite like that."

Conrad Nelson's production has made other demands of Gilly too on the musical front. "I did a couple of plays where I sang when I was a student, and now I'm singing again in this show. I've discovered I'm a mezzo soprano," she says.

It all adds up to a fast-moving, physically demanding show for Nelson's cast, whose autumn tour ends on December 13.

"I've lost weight with all the rushing around; I've lost 18lbs," says Gilly. "I was more concerned about the weight of the wig and the costume, but partly because you're corseted, you don't want to eat a lot, and I also did a lot of walking and careful eating to prepare for the performances, as I remembered John Gielgud once saying 'touring is stamina'; and he's right."

Northern Broadsides presents She Stoops To Conquer, tonight until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk