She was the nation's favourite girl next door as Jo Sugden in Emmerdale, but now Roxanne Pallett is getting racy heading out on the piste in Hull. Ian Midgley finds out why.
You could practically see the drool from here. "Former Emmerdale sweetheart films steamy nude scene for new film," gasped one national red top last week.
"Roxanne leaves nothing to the imagination for raunchy sex scenes," heavy-breathed another.
To be fair, when you have a former soap starlet like Roxanne Pallett disrobing for her latest movie role, then you'd expect the tabloids to have a field day.
After all, the 31-year-old "stunner" has regularly been near the top of the lads' mags' "world's sexiest" polls for the past decade.
A chance to see her in the altogether is probably any Fleet Street editor's dream.
It may be the Cumbrian-raised actress part(s) in the forthcoming US movie horror flick Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort, that has got the nationals all hot and flustered, but what they all failed to mention was the fact that the effervescent actress's next job, a revamped version of John Godber's skiing dramedy On The Piste, features a bit of gratuitous nudity all of its own.
The dirty mac brigade may want to stay at home when the play arrives at Hull Truck next month, though, because it won't be Pallett's pert posterior you'll be seeing on stage – it will be that of one of her male co-stars.
"I can confirm there is nudity in the show," laughs the actress, relaxing in the green room before getting ready for the second night of the show's national tour.
"There is a flash of bottom, but for a change it won't be mine. It's one of the lads in the show. Sorry to disappoint!"
"There is one sauna scene though, where I have to desperately keep my towel on.
"Otherwise there may be someone in the front row getting a real shock."
After an early career spent playing Emmerdale's feisty Jo Sugden in a series of gritty and hard-hitting storylines, Roxanne admits she's loving being able to show her comedy chops in Godber's reworked skiing farce.
After a lifetime of crying in TV dramas she says people are often surprised to find that, in real life, she's actually a bubbly character with a bawdy sense of humour and nice sideline in self-deprecation.
"When you spend about five years crying on TV, people tend to think you're only really good at playing broke and bullied characters," she says, temporarily swapping zingy for deadly serious. "They don't realise you can do other stuff.
"I think because Emmerdale was my first professional job where everybody was introduced to me, that's how I was seen for a long time. Jo was a poster girl for crying.
"And I'm a method actor, so when I'm doing a really punishing role I make myself get into that mindset – and it can take its toll.
"I'm not complaining, because it was such an amazing storyline to be involved in and it made a huge impact. I love playing extreme characters, they're so much more interesting than boring 'vanilla' roles.
"But I think when people meet me they're surprised to find just how upbeat and bubbly I am.
"That's why it's nice to play Bev in On The Piste; she's the polar opposite of that.
"She's a little bit ditzy, an eternal optimist and she never stops talking. She says exactly what she thinks without thinking through the consequences first.
"She's exactly the sort of girl you wouldn't want sat next to you on a long flight."
The actress says she didn't audition for the part in the traditional way, as legendary Hull writer director Godber was still updating the script. Instead she sat down with Swanland-based Godber for an "intense chat".
"He basically hotseated me," she says. "I just talked at him and, you know, I can talk.
"He sat back and sussed me out, what sort of person I am. He's got that ability to suss people out and to work out what makes them tick."
She must have impressed him; there was a box of chocolates waiting for her in her dressing room on opening night – "good ones, too," she laughs. "M&S, not CostCo."
Describing Godber as "the godfather of British comedy", she coos at the prospect of working with the playwright, having become familiar with his plays while studying media at Liverpool John Moores University.
There are downsides to branching out into comedy, though, admits the former Dancing On Ice contestant.
"My thighs are killing me," she laughs. "Wearing those skis is hard work. I'm properly feeling the burn. And those salopettes are sweltering.
Seriously, I'm losing about a stone on stage every night."
• On The Piste runs at Hull Truck Theatre Tuesday, November 4, to Saturday, November 15. Tickets from £12 to £18. Call 01482 323638 or visit hulltruck.co.ukTowering figure in the history of Hull Truck TheatreThere's a widely quoted fact that Hull's John Godber is the third most performed playwright in the world, behind William Shaksepeare and Alan Ayckbourn.
Not bad company to be in.
The miner's son from Upton, in West Yorkshire, has amassed a huge back catalogue of plays since turning his back on teaching to become a full-time playwright with hits such as Bouncers, Teechers, Up N' Under and April In Paris among his best-known pieces.
It is said a Czech-language production of Bouncers has been running continuously in Prague for the past nine years.
Godber, now 58, is best known in Hull as one of the towering figures in the history of Hull Truck, helping to transform the edgy company into one of the country's most successful regional theatre companies and also overseeing its move into its new bespoke £15m home on Ferensway.
On The Piste, a comic drama utilising Godber's trademark mix of quick fire comic banter and peeling pathos – received its debut on February 1, 1990, at the Derby Playhouse.
Telling the tale of two mismatched, ordinary couples, flung into the world of aprés ski, taut sexual tension, sweaty salopettes and dubiously loose-moralled ski instructors, Godber has regularly updated his play, modernising and updating the show as the years have progressed.
Much like Bouncers, where the soundtrack and pop culture references have evolved over time to fit the zeitgeist, so has On The Piste – meaning the show arriving at Hull Truck next month is an entirely different beast to its previous incarnations.
