Pole position

“I saw Stiff Little Fingers there once. Now I’ve got my own stiff little fingers wrapped around the pole!” laughs Claire, who recently appeared at the Bradford venue starring in The Naked Truth, a bittersweet comedy about a group of women meeting up for a weekly pole-dancing class in a village hall.

The play is written by former Emmerdale scriptwriter Dave Simpson. “He writes well for women. It’s typical northern humour. Yorkshire audiences have been fantastic; they get that self-effacing, British thing of laughing at ourselves,” says Claire, 47, who shot to fame playing ruthless Kim Tate in the Yorkshire soap. It’s a good job Claire has a sense of humour. She had just a handful of pole dancing lessons before going on tour with the play, and ended up covered in bruises.

Learning to pole-dance, and doing it nightly, has been particularly difficult because she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her early 30s.

“It was a shock, I thought it was something older people got,” says Claire. “I’ve learned to live with it, but it can be very painful, especially when it kicks in with the colder weather.

“I always end up doing something crazy and physical demanding – first Strictly, and now this.”

When she competed on BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with Brendan Cole, doctors advised her to pull out of the hit show, which pairs celebrities with professional dancers. She was left in agony after daily rehearsals and gruelling dance routines. “Strictly was great for keeping fit, but tough on the feet. I was in a lot of pain in my feet, fingers and knees, and my ballroom shoes were killing me. But I struggled on. I’m a Yorkshire girl – I’m made of strong stuff!” smiles Claire.

“Pole-dancing is all about the hands and arms; you’re supporting your whole weight so you need good upper-body strength.”

A keen horse-rider – she has racehorses and competes in charity races – Claire says she keeps “quite fit”. Aged 45, she released Claire King’s Ultimate Body Workout, which topped the fitness DVD charts in 2008.

“It all started at a girlie lunch with friends; everyone was admitting having had ‘lypo’ and I thought, ‘that’s fine, but it doesn’t make you toned and fit’,” says Claire.

“When you hit your mid-40s you discover stubborn areas you want to concentrate on. It’s all about adopting a positive approach to eating, exercise and getting fit. It’s never too late to get in shape.”

Born Claire Seed, she grew up in Harrogate. Her grandparents lived in Tong near Bradford, her grandfather owned mills in the district, and her father appeared on stage at the former Bradford Civic Theatre.

A pony-riding pupil at Harrogate Ladies’ College, Claire developed an alter ego when punk came along, donning ripped fishnet tights and a barbed wire choker to work as a DJ in Leeds nightclubs.

“It was a great time to be young,” Claire recalls. “When punk came along everyone was in a band, we thought we were wild and daring.”

After leaving school, Claire moved to London and appeared in rock videos for acts such as Elvis Costello.

Joining Emmerdale in 1989, she made scheming Kim Tate the nation’s top soap superbitch. “I learned more from Emmerdale than I ever could at drama school,” says Claire.

“Working on a soap is like a sausage factory; it’s a tough schedule, but fantastic experience. I loved Emmerdale – it brought me back up to Yorkshire and I’ve been here ever since.”

Claire, who is divorced from actor Peter Amory – who played Kim’s stepson, Chris Tate in Emmerdale – left the soap in 1999 and went on to play prison governor Karen Betts in ITV’s Bad Girls.

She has since appeared in TV dramas including Hollyoaks, Holby City and The Royal, and was in sitcom The Gemma Factor, playing a wacky mum described as a cross between Lady Ga Ga and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous.

She’s currently starring in panto in Middlesbrough, playing wicked fairy Belladonna in Jack And The Beanstalk.

“I wanted to do the Bradford Alhambra panto, but it didn’t happen. Middlesbrough is just about commutable from home, though,” she says.

“I love comedy, it’s a whole different discipline. I’d like to do more. The problem is there’s not much new writing coming through, because the schedules are saturated with reality TV. God knows how new writers get a break these days.”

She has turned her own hand to writing, with magazine columns and her 2007 autobiography, Confessions Of A Bad Girl. With her horse-riding background, would she consider writing a racy novel set among the horsey set?

“Jilly Cooper has beaten me to that – she’s been following us around the races circuit for her latest book,” says Claire. “I’d like to have a go, but it’s just getting used to the discipline of sitting down and doing it.”

With punk, ballroom, horse-racing and pole-dancing under her belt, she should have plenty of inspiration to go on.