BRAYTON schoolboy Luke Adamson made a name for himself last September playing Shane, the young narrator in York Theatre Royal's unforgettable production of Brassed Off.

He returns to the York stage on Thursday, again with narrating duties to his name, but this time at the Grand Opera House in the lead role in Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13.

Luke, 16, is starring in Selby company Workshop Theatre's debut show at the Cumberland Street theatre, as part of a company of six professional actors and 18 non-professionals.

"It's good to have the chance to work with professionals who know what they're doing and have done it for so long," says Luke. "I can learn from them and it will help me to progress as an actor, while putting on an amazing play."

Luke first attended Playbox youth theatre at the age of ten and he is in his third year of drama studies in Selby at the Harman Academy, whose director, Diana Harman, is directing the Mole show.

"I've just left Brayton College this summer and I'm going to start a media course at Selby College, but at the moment I'm in the Harman Academy every day, whether it's for working on Adrian or preparing auditions," he says.

Luke has appeared at the Theatre Royal not only in Brassed Off but also in Arthur Miller's All My Sons, four Berwick Kaler pantomimes and York Opera's The Sorceress. Such is his progress on the stage that he has signed to the FBI Agency, theatrical agents, not the American investigative bureau.

Luke, however, is keeping his feet on the ground, focusing on his latest role rather than projecting into the future. "When I get a character to do on stage, I start off by looking at the way I think he would speak and walk, the physical aspect and his background. I put only a small amount of my characteristics in to make it different from other performances of Adrian," he says.

"I've read all the Adrian Mole books, and that's like being able to look into the future when he's 13 because you can see how he turns out as well as how he is in the present: the way he thinks, his total geekiness. He tries so hard to be normal, and he's just not."

Luke can empathise with Adrian Mole's predicaments. "I've never really been particularly popular at high school. At Year 7 I was split up from my friends at junior school and I remember feeling quite alone and on my own, and I'm sure Adrian feels like that a lot of the time," he says.

"But thank God I've never been through anything as traumatic as Adrian, such as his parents splitting up and being thrown out of school for wearing militant red socks. I did go through a period of being bullied, though strangely he's now one of my best friends!"

The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13, Workshop Theatre, Grand Opera House, York, July 14 to 16, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets: £7.50 to £13; ring 0870 606 3595. CH

Updated: 09:16 Friday, July 08, 2005