The production of Chekhov's great tragi-comedy The Seagull at West Yorkshire Playhouse features three stalwarts of the British stage: Sir Ian McKellen, Bradford-born Clare Higgins, and veteran comic actor Willie Ross.

Sir Ian, hat tipped rakishly, cruises through his role as the affable medical man and womaniser Dr Dorn.

Clare Higgins commands The Courtyard Theatre's small stage as Arkadina, vainglorious actress and mother of the self-loathing, neurotic playwright Konstantin. Willie Ross, as the steward Shamraev, is a kind of Yorkshire Albert Steptoe in a brown Derby hat, obstreperous and ridiculous.

But the outstanding performance belongs to Claudie Blakley as Nina, the young would-be actress, whose nave dreams of theatrical fame and glory are exploited by the writer Trigorin, Arkadina's lover.

For Trigorin, wide-eyed Nina, the object of Konstantin's hopelessly insecure passion, is merely the promising subject for yet another short story. Once the story is written Trigorin's interest dies; she is as meaningless to him as the dead seagull which the embittered Konstantin lays at her feet in ironic tribute.

In the past I've never much cared for Nina, mistaking her openness to experience as simple-minded credulity. Claudie Blakley's acting, however, wrung out of me both pity and admiration. In the last act Nina stands in Konstantin's room, contemplating her ruinous love for self-obsessed Trigorin and the precarious theatrical career ahead of her. "I am a seagull. No, that's not it! I am an actress," she declares, defiant but vulnerable at the same time.

It is then that you notice, if you did not notice before, that her hands are like the wings of small birds.

"At the end I think Nina is the strong one; at least she's not broken. She is going to fly away, she is the seagull. Nina is the biggest part of the three I'm doing, although Miranda in The Tempest will be a challenge. But I was most concerned about Nina because I didn't want to play her as weak," Claudie said.

She'd have a job. Although slender of build Claudie Blakley has a powerful and distinctive voice; her lisping rasp sandpapers words as she speaks them, so you find yourself listening attentively to the way she utters words.

"I hated my voice for years. All my family have got this voice, we get it from dad - Alan Blakley: he was a musician in The Tremeloes."

Blakley played rhythm guitar. Between 1963 and 1965 Brian Poole and The Tremeloes had a number of hits, including Do You Love Me. When Poole went his own way, The Tremeloes had seven Top Ten hits between 1967 and 1970, including Silence is Golden. He died a few years ago from cancer.

"My mum, Lin, started out as an actress, but her father stopped her. She's started again and is doing a show at Wellingborough. My sister Kirsten is a musician. She and I did a lot of pantomimes together. We have always been encouraged and backed up," she said.

Repertory went out of fashion in the 1960s. What's happening at the Playhouse may make bring it back to life. Working with the same small group of actors over a period of six months is exciting, but demanding. The day after the performance of The Seagull which I saw, Claudie was called in to rehearse her role as Daphne Stillington in the next play, Nel Coward's Present Laughter. Two hours later she was back on stage as Nina.

"It's not every day," she laughed. "I just have a sleep before going on. I remember Kenneth Branagh saying, 'Always sleep if you can'. It's an unbelievable way to work; I have never done anything like this before. Obviously we have the luxury of rehearsing a play for six weeks. In the past actors in repertory barely had a week and went on not really knowing the play.

"It's wonderful, getting to know each other. We've all moved up here to work. None of us have any friends here, so we socialise and arrange get-togethers. Actors spend a lot of time alone."

Admirers of Claudie's work talk of another Maggie Smith in the making. She's delighted to be so regarded because, as she admits, she is ambitious. The important thing is that she is ambitious to better herself - not act the part of a star in the making, which is tiresome.

"I have my feet firmly on the ground. I got a firm grounding from my family. We're best friends in our family. I am a lucky girl," she said.

And we are lucky to have the opportunity of watching Claudie Blakley at work among distinguished company. They and The Playhouse deserve awards for adding a little more lustre to the Northern sky.

Jim Greenhalf

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