West End stage star Gemma Craven talks to Charles Hutchinson about her

excitement at making her Hull Truck debut in John Godber's 44th play, Going Dutch.

WELCOME to Hull, Gemma Craven, star of the West End stage, film and television screen.

"We're opposite a derelict lap-dancing club. Nothing but the best!" she says, mid-rehearsal for her Hull Truck debut in John Godber's 44th play, Going Dutch, a tale of mid-life sex and drugs and rock'n'roll in Amsterdam.

Going Dutch has since opened at Hull Truck Theatre and kicks off its 2005 tour at the Grand Opera House in York, where audiences can look forward to Gemma stealing the show when her character, Sally, experiences hash cake for the first time.

The Irish actress, who will be 55 this year, has starred in such films as The Slipper And The Rose and The Mystery Of Edwin Drood and is best remembered for Dennis Potter's ground-breaking television series, Pennies From Heaven.

In a diverse 36-year career that has embraced musicals, starring with Leonard Rossiter and Alastair Sim and leading-lady status in films, her feisty northern role in a John Godber comedy represented another challenge: her first Godber play.

The invitation came from Godber himself.

"I had a phone call from my agent saying that John would like to meet me, so he came to London about two weeks before rehearsals were due to start.

"He was talking and talking and telling me all about the play, even though he hadn't written it yet, though I'm sure it was all on his computer!" Gemma recalls.

"He rang me later and said 'Would I be interested?', and I said yes of course. I was just over the moon to be asked, not only because it was a new John Godber play but also because I knew of the standard of actors he uses, so you'd be a fool to turn that down."

The last two pages of the script were not delivered to the cast until well into the rehearsals - "It's like being in weekly rep," Gemma jokes - but she has found Godber's writing very stimulating.

"John's observations on the human race are endless. You only get to see the tip of the iceberg in the relationship between Mark and Sally - he's a composer, she's Mrs Housewife, they've been together for 25 years - but you do know a lot's happening underneath.

"With John's writing, there's so much going on; niggly things come out. Sally and Mark talk and yet they don't really talk because it's bad manners.

"We know there's a problem in the marriage but we don't talk about it, so Godber's skill is in letting the audience see that and do the work for themselves while the characters hold back."

Gemma has enjoyed working with Godber the director, as much as Godber the writer. "He's an amazing director, not only to work with but to watch.

"He has this way of making you do something by not directly saying 'I want you to do that' but by relating a story of something that has happened or he has seen happen to someone else, and because of that story you then known exactly what he wants," she says.

"Rather than just having a director say 'No, I want you to do it this way', it's more fulfilling working how John works.

"You leave the rehearsal room so tired and exhausted at the end of the day - it's like you've just been on a squash court - but then you read the script again at night and you go 'Ping! That's what he means!"

Gemma is all over the place at the moment, in the best possible sense.

She has been playing Helen, opposite Sally Phillips, in BBC Radio 4's Friday morning series, Claire In The Community; Pennies From Heaven has been released on DVD and is being screened again on BBC4 and now she feels she should have a big arrow over head saying "Guess who I'm working with - John Godber".

"She's on the radio, she's on the telly, she's on stage. You don't see her for years, then she pops up like a bad penny," Gemma says, laughing at her own expense.

Going Dutch, Hull Truck Theatre Company, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm; box office 0870 606 3590. West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, April 11 to 16; 0113 213 7700.

Updated: 16:16 Thursday, January 20, 2005