I BET it would have stopped the traffic, although whether or not it would have added anything to the interview, I'm not sure, writes Mike Pryce.

I was on the end of a mobile phone, when Rebecca Lacey announced. Around here, you'd have to walk down the street naked before anyone noticed anything unusual!

It was her reply to my polite inquiry as to whether she was still OK after jogging through the streets of Richmond, Surrey, while chatting to me about her part in the David Hare play Amy's View, which comes to Malvern next week.

After shooting to television fame as the dippy blond secretary Hilary in the highly successful legal sit-com May to December, she has been starring more recently as Dr George in Casualty.

But she said it was hard shaking off the image of the giggly blonde bombshell.

I turned down several parts because of it, she said. I was afraid of being typecast if carried on in that vein.

In her latest part she plays opposite Susannah York in Amy's View, which has already enjoyed successful runs in the West End and on Broadway.

Ms York takes the part of a well-known actress finding work more difficult to come by, while Rebecca is her daughter Amy, who arrives on the scene with a new boyfriend to set off a remarkable train of events.

Tickets to the play cost between £12 and £20 and are available from the Malvern Festival Theatres box office on 01684 892277.