After her phenomenal success as the Witch in last year's panto at the Theatre Royal, Lesley Joseph is back - and once again it is as you won't have seen her before.

Gone is the pointed hat and cloak she wore in Snow White and the high heels and long fingernails of Dorian from Birds of a Feather.

Instead she will be wearing a pulled-down hat, three-quarter length skirt and a dowdy coat. She says: "In Office Suite I look just like Edna out of Emmerdale. I play a real dour northern woman.

"You know the type, forever on her high horse, heavily opinionated and a hater of anything male."

Lesley Joseph returns to Brighton later this month as Miss Protheroe in a double bill of plays by Alan Bennett.

She says: "They have never been seen on stage before, they were written and made for television in the Seventies but we did a short tour of them in the spring which was very successful so we've brought them back to theatres we never visited then.

"I haven't done a full play in a long while so it was a bit of a shock to the system. I had to get my head round a thick northern accent for which I must admit I needed some extensive coaching. But it has been a thrilling thing to do."

Lesley was cast for the play while appearing in the tour of The Vagina Monologues.

She said: "We opened the Monologues tour in Bath and I had to sit on stage and shout the C word. That took a lot of courage.

"When a thousand voices yelled it back at me I was almost dumbfounded but it made me feel quite relaxed.

"Work has been surprisingly easy to get after Feathers ,which I thought might have stereotyped me.

"But I think my looks are a bit out of fashion these days. Televison seems to want the light, girl next-door look.

"I would like to do some period stuff where my looks would work in my favour. Some Dickens perhaps.

"It certainly is good to get away from Dorian, those long nails and high heels were real killers although I really came to love her character.

"I would like to do a catch-up piece like Men Behaving Badly did, to show where the characters are now. Birds was definitely a show of its time but I'm not too sure they would fit into Blairite Britain."

In Office Suite's first play, A Visit From Miss Protheroe, Lesley is the woman who comes to visit an old friend. Within an hour she has demoloshed all his confidence.

In Green Forms she plays one of two women in a small engineering office.

Call 01273 328488 for further details.