BY the end of their Scarborough run, Claudia Elmhirst and Bill Champion will have completed 5,184 quick changes in Alan Ayckbourn's octopus of a play, Intimate Exchanges.

By the last night of their New York transfer, the total will have risen to 6,240.

They began their marathon on March 13 last year, facing the challenge of learning 871 pages of A4 dialogue for ten characters in 31 scenes that, if played back to back, would take 16 hours to complete.

Over the next month, Claudia and Bill will present all eight twohanders, with their 16 graveyard endings, in the first complete run of the eight-legged Intimate Exchanges since Lavinia Bertram and Robin Herford performed the Scarborough premiere on the hoof in 1982.

"I think it just shows what our memories can do, " says Claudia, contemplating the Grand National of theatrical challenges.

"But I've found that as the characters are developing, their speech patterns become easier, but of course that can also lead to repeating inaccuracies. There's never a day that goes by when I don't check the script."

Bill keeps his feet on the ground.

"It's the same as doing any play, except that normally you're playing one part in one play.

"With this, I was very concerned about differentiating between the characters, and so you make very bold choices, and then it becomes a choice of how much you can take away while still keeping them individual. We're refining them even more in the final run, especially the two middle-class couples, " he says.

"Your entire body feels different with each character. When Claudia plays Celia the drunkard headmaster's wife, she's frigid and you can feel she's full of tension.

Or when the young Sylvie holds Toby the headmaster, he's rigid? "?Whereas with Rowena a woman of generous favours, I feel someone has just poured me a bath of rose oil and I can wallow in it, " says Claudia.

What has she learned from working with Alan Ayckbourn this season?

"When there are only two of you doing all the roles, you think you have to be fascinating all the time, but Alan says, 'Let the play do that for you. Trust the play', and he's right."

It must be hard for Claudia and Bill to contemplate life after July 1.

"This has been the kind of job you never thought would come up, and I will be quite emotional about it all on the last day, " Claudia says.

"I'm pretty new to Alan's work; there are lots of his plays I've not seen or read, but I know they're always from the heart, and so there is such warmth in all of the characters, whether they're a pain in the arse or not. That's what I'll miss; you're only as good as the writing, and I will miss these characters hugely.

"Doing these plays has changed my career. Having this much time in front of an audience with these characters has changed the way I work. I've had a massive masterclass in playing to audiences, learning how to measure them and read them and enjoy them."

Bill mulls over his next theatrical engagement.

"I haven't really thought about it until this moment, as these plays just become part of your life, " he says. "The future? You do the jobs as and when they come up."

Maybe so, but it is not every day that Intimate Exchanges is in your diary.

The Intimate Exchanges Grand Slam, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until May 5.

Box office: 01723 370541.

Intimate Exchanges will transfer to 59E59 Theaters, New York, as part of The Brits Off Broadway Festival from May 31 to July 1.