YORKSHIRE actor Graham Turner casts an eye over his CV and notes a common theme to his roles.

"I always play these weird characters," he says.

Having played a pie man with a Judy Garland and Upstairs Downstairs fixation in Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies series and Walter the village soft-head in Where The Heart Is, his latest characterisation is mummy's boy Graham in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologue A Chip In The Sugar.

First performed by Bennett himself in the 1988 television series, now Graham will be portrayed by Turner in Jim Hopper's Studio production at York Theatre Royal from Thursday.

"Graham is in maybe his late 40s, he's in love with his mother, and he still lives with her," says Turner.

"You see his type in the street. Just before starting here, I went to see my mum and dad in Wakefield, and there were these two women talking, with a man standing quietly behind them with a shopping bag, and I thought 'oh gosh, there's Graham'."

In A Chip In The Sugar, Bennett's Graham has to cope with his ageing mother suddenly rekindling a relationship with an old flame.

"The interesting thing is how he deals with it, and while his mother ably deals with the situation, he doesn't deal with it at all well because his little world has changed," Turner says.

Now 51, he has played such heavyweight roles as Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman and appeared in Royal Shakespeare Company productions of The Winter's Tale, The Comedy Of Errors and The Seagull but A Chip In the Sugar marks a first in Turner's stage career.

"This is my first time doing a monologue show, and yes, it is scary. I've never wittered on this long before!" he says. "I think it's a funny piece but audiences always surprise you with what they do and don't find funny, and they'll tell you where you can go faster or slow it down, so eventually, once you've done it in front of an audience, you do settle down."

Talking Heads, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, August 29 to September 21. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 10:00 Friday, August 23, 2002