Popstars created teen band Hear'Say. Now Soapstars is looking for Emmerdale's newest family. CHRIS TITLEY meets the York actress who braved the torture of

televised auditions

EMMERDALE could have done with Jan Shaughnessy. Dropping this blonde, tattooed human hurricane into the rural Yorkshire soap would have caused more havoc than any number of crashed airliners.

"Twenty years ago, I used to look at Joan Collins as Alexis Colby on Dynasty and think that would be my ideal role," she says, taking a quick drag on her cigarette.

"She was like the bitch from hell, but so camp it was funny. A role like that would have been fantastic."

It is easy to imagine this feisty Liverpudlian becoming the Alexis of the Woolpack, crushing Eric Pollard with words more barbed than the wire around Home Farm.

Alas, it is not to be. Opting for a quiet life, the Soapstars judging panel rejected Jan - but only after several rounds of auditions. She is still set for a starring role in the first Soapstars episode, broadcast on ITV1 next Monday.

The series set out to find a new family for a "leading soap" - only later revealed as Emmerdale - by auditioning hundreds of unknown hopefuls. Up for grabs were the parts of mum, dad and two teenage children.

The documentary follows the success of Popstars, which saw a nation gripped as "nasty Nigel" Lythgoe put Spice Girl and Boyzone wannabes through their paces, with hilarious, painful and poignant consequences. The ultimate result was a new teen band, Hear'Say, and several smash hits.

Seeing what the audition fodder of Popstars were put through, it is a wonder anyone turned up for Soapstars. In fact, more than 6,000 tried for this latest chance of instant fame.

Jan is a 39-year-old live-wire from Belle Vue Street, York, who decided to revive her acting career after a near-death experience, more of which later. When she saw Soapstars advertised on Richard and Judy, she knew she had to give it a go.

Having missed Popstars, Jan had no idea what to expect. She arrived at Sheffield Town Hall at 8am on the big day to find 400 people in front of her. By the time the doors opened an hour later, the figure had grown to 1,000.

"Most of them were kids who had obviously seen Popstars. It was really weird. I was there because I wanted an acting job, they were all there because they wanted to be on TV, they wanted to be famous."

The excitement was tangible. "Considering it was peeing it down, the atmosphere was great. London Weekend, the makers of the programme, were getting people geed up. The cameras were going up and down and they asked us to do a Mexican wave."

Jan has been to many auditions, but this was the first where she had no chance to prepare something in advance. Then came a real shock: each hopeful was to get only 15 seconds to impress the judging panel, made up of Emmerdale scriptwriter Bill Lyons, casting director Paul de Freitas and drama producer Yvon Grace.

"You can't act in 15 seconds and impress somebody. You can't do it. It's impossible," said Jan. "I was standing in the queue thinking 'what the hell am I going to do to make an impression?'"

Hundreds failed to impress, some being despatched by Yvon "The Viper" - taking the nasty Nigel role - before the 15 seconds were up.

Jan had done stand-up comedy in the past, and thought this would be her best chance at success.

"I walked up for my spot, looked at the three of them, and said, 'can I ask you which one is the director? I just want to know who to sleep with to get this part.'"

A couple more gags, and she got the thumbs-up. In the next round she had to act out a scene taken from an old Emmerdale script. Being an old hand, she took the time to learn her lines. Again, the judges were impressed. She had got what every actor desires: a call-back.

The next thing Jan knew, she was being interviewed in front of the cameras with two other successful candidates. They hardly got a word in "next to gob almighty", as Jan describes herself. Then, the interviewer asked her to phone her mum to tell her the good news. That was a proud moment. Her mother, known to all as Moth, is "the best mum in the world".

Jan's father died suddenly when she was six, leaving her mum to bring up eight children by herself. She opened a caf in Birkenhead market and put the girls through convent school and the boys through a Christian Brothers education.

Jan started working on the market when she was ten. Here she learned to project her personality "or die. I haven't blushed since I was ten-and-a-half". Among those she worked alongside was Paul O'Grady, later to find fame as Lily Savage.

Even back then, all Jan wanted to do was act. She took parts in school plays, but "as far as the nuns were concerned, actresses were one step up from whores, you know. This was not something you were told was a career option."

Jan finally took a drama course as a mature student, landing a role with Liverpool's Afta Thought company when she graduated. She would play rape victims in training exercises for the police and social services. After relocating in York at the behest of a previous boyfriend, she expected to find plenty of work in our "city of culture". She was wrong: instead she went into sales.

One day at work she collapsed. Fortunately her colleagues already knew she was living with an aneurysm - a swelling of an artery - and that if it burst she could die of a brain haemorrhage. That was what killed her father. They called an ambulance immediately.

She underwent an 11-hour operation in Leeds General to stem the bleeding, and was not expected to make it. When she did, doctors proclaimed her a "walking miracle" and she vowed not to waste any more of her life.

That was nearly two years ago. Since then she has been concentrating on her acting career.

And that is what brought her back to Sheffield for day two of Soapstars auditions.

This time, she was asked to improvise a family argument with two others, and she felt it went well. But she didn't make it any further.

"I'd realised that what they were looking for physically wasn't me," she said. "I had seen the other women they had chosen for the mother role. They were doctor's wife types. Here I was, a bleached blonde with tattoos."

She was disappointed, not at losing the chance for fame but at missing out on a chance for regular acting work. Her role model is Judi Dench, not Big Brother's Helen.

Jan will watch the show on Monday, hoping it might still prove to be the springboard to other acting jobs.

"One person I hope will be watching is Ms Savage," she said, with that irrepressible smile.

Updated: 10:54 Thursday, August 30, 2001