On stage, Joanna Riding is the very model of a chaste young maid from a rural French backwater.

So it's a surprise to find that out of her costume, her accent is more Fred Elliott than Grard Depardieu.

Not that's she's unusually loud or even deep-voiced. But there's no mistaking that lovely Lancashire burr.

"It's especially noticeable on words like carrr," she says. "All the same, people don't always twig. I keep getting asked if I'm Canadian."

Actually, she's from a village outside Preston, where her family runs a farm.

"Dad's accent is so strong that when I'm on the phone to him it acts as an emotional trigger and I become quite broad," she says.

"He doesn't stand for any of that London luvvie nonsense." That's disappointing, given that his daughter is one of the most feted musical actresses in the profession.

She won a Best Actress Olivier Award for her performance in Carousel at the Royal National Theatre and in the West End; and she was nominated for another for Guys and Dolls.

Currently she is Mme Bertrande in Cameron Mackintosh's acclaimed new production of Martin Guerre at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Yet Joanna says she originally had no theatrical ambitions at all.

"I wanted to be a doctor," she says. "I ended up in the wrong kind of theatre."

Even now, she insists her heart does not lie in musicals alone. "When I got the National job, I couldn't say no to Carousel and Oh, What a Lovely War.

"But I keep telling myself that next time I'm going to do a straight play.

"It's acting that's my passion, not singing. That's unusual in musicals but I do think it's the way forward. I don't think audiences tolerate bad acting in musicals like they may once have done."

She became involved with Martin Guerre after appearing in Cameron Mackintosh's tribute show, Hey, Mr Producer. "I wouldn't have done it if I'd felt that it was the West End version all over again," she says.

In fact, the composers Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schnberg (Les Misrables, Miss Saigon) were at pains to re-invent their show, having laboured under the unhappiness of not getting the original production to their liking.

"They were quite open about it," says Joanna. "Obviously, they're artists rather than megalomaniacs."

Despite her northern origins, Joanna's career has been almost exclusively London-based.

"But I did go up to the Grand Theatre in Blackpool to perform in a musical that an old music teacher of mine had written, based on Joan of Arc.

"I'd promised him years before that I'd play Joan if he ever got it finished. It was the Grand's centenary, and they agreed to give us a week to put the show on."

Her current role, however, will afford her a first opportunity to tour the country. After it leaves Leeds, Martin Guerre will go on the road for much of the coming year.

"It's not a long contract by Cameron's standards - just under 12 months - and there'll be no chance to get bored because we're only in each town for about two weeks," she says. "It's a whistle-stop tour."

Martin Guerre in its new incarnation has been warmly received by critics, with only a few non-uniform voices claiming to have preferred the London version.

Joanna is unmoved by such dissent. "I just think it's wonderful," she says, "that a Cameron Mackintosh show has been given birth to in Leeds."

l Martin Guerre is at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until February 13. There is a ticket hotline on 0113 213 7200

David Behrens

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