THERE is a first time for everything. Actor Matthew Cottle, for example, will be chalking up not one but four firsts at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.

From this evening, the former Game On star is making his Scarborough debut, but that's the easy part.

"I'm facing up to quite a few firsts," says Matthew. "It's my first time in Scarborough; my first time on a boat on stage; my first time in the water on stage... and my first time naked on stage!"

Boat first. Matthew is playing the principal role of Alistair in Alan Ayckbourn's revival of Way Upstream, a play not performed in Scarborough since its 1981 debut. In fact a play rarely performed, full stop.

The technical demands of setting this dark tale of a canal journey to Armageddon Bridge on a cabin cruiser, surrounded by tons of water, famously delayed the opening of the National Theatre production several times. Water problems caused thousands of pounds worth of damage, and when the press night finally was held, one critic turned up in his wellington boots.

Leaks have been setting the technical staff a challenge this week. "That's why I'm sitting in a coffee bar on the phone to you while they're doing the tech," says Matthew, but he is not complaining. "I think it's one of Alan Ayckbourn's best plays, and it's terribly exciting, slopping about in water.

"We've had four weeks of rehearsals on a boat to get used to it, so the play becomes a play about people on a boat and not just a play about a boat."

Water, water, will be everywhere. "Hopefully we'll come through the 20 minutes of rain that will fall on us every show - and then a couple of us will end up in the water for a fight!" says Matthew.

He is no stranger to taking on the elements. In Peter Pan at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, he had to fly through the air in his role as Michael. "I remember a particularly painful tech rehearsal, when I had this harness between my legs. It's OK for a couple of minutes; any more and it's shaky, but being up there for one and half hours, while they ask you if you're all right up there, mate, while they adjust the lighting... now that's painful!"

Matthew has appeared in five Ayckbourn plays in recent years, beginning with Ayckbourn's own West End production of Comic Potential in 1999. Never before, however, has he had to shed his modesty. "My character Alistair talks about wanting to take his clothes off and make love, and it takes the fight to loosen his inhibitions," he says.

Tonight is the first night, Matthew; time to strip off and dive in. Apparently, the water's lovely.

u ALAN Ayckbourn is looking forward to his first Scarborough production of Way Upstream since its 1981 premiere.

"I've chosen to do it because although the play's 22 years old, the world hasn't changed much and certainly the people haven't - though hopefully the audience will have," he says.

"Way Upstream gained a certain air of notoriety originally because of the great technical debacle at the National Theatre when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. With the result that the play itself rather got lost, or perhaps swamped is a better word, which is a shame because it's a lot more than stage effects - though I can't deny that an actual boat moving on real water with real rain is enormous fun as well."

Way Upstream, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 15. Box office: 01723 370541.

Updated: 09:01 Friday, October 17, 2003