Former Emmerdale actress Claire King, whose family is from Bradford, is stepping back into soap with a role in TV’s Hollyoaks.

The Yorkshire actress is best known for her roles as scheming Kim Tate in Emmerdale and prison governor Karen Betts in ITV’s Bad Girls.

Born Claire Seed, her grandparents lived in Tong and her grandfather was a mill-owner in the district. Her father appeared on stage at the former Bradford Civic theatre in Little Germany.

In her autobiography, Confessions of a Bad Girl, Miss King wrote of going to see bands play in Bradford when she was a teenage punk. The book hit the headlines with Miss King’s claims that she had an affair with Bob Geldof in the 1980s and met him after a Boomtown Rats concert at St George’s Hall. The actress, who is a keen horsewoman, has appeared in The Royal, partly filmed in Bradford, and competed on BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing.

This week she returns to Channel 4’s Hollyoaks, playing another prison boss; the wing governor of a jail where one of the show’s characters, Mitzee, is being held.

“I’ve done Hollyoaks before, in 2005,” she said. “I played a barrister –– then in 2006 I did Hollyoaks In The City,” she said. “But it's been a while since I’ve done soap and it's nice to just dip your toe in.”

Emmerdale viewers last saw Kim Tate flying over the Yorkshire countryside in a helicopter. Will she return to the soap?

“Kim was a fantastic character to play because she was very big and over the top. I loved playing Kim, and I got paid to ride horses all day so that was fantastic,” said Miss King.

“It’s still her house – I don’t know what all those people are doing running around in her house at the moment! She still has her name on the title deeds. It would be quite good to return. Perhaps she’d get in there, quick killing spree, then out again!”

She was last in Bradford in 2010, at St George’s Hall in pole dancing comedy The Naked Truth, and returns to the play in January.

“I've got a couple of things on the go in the meantime,” she said. “It’s nice to see there are a few more dramas being made but it’s the same people getting their faces on them the whole time, which is a little annoying.

“It’s great being on stage, it's that instant buzz you get and you think, ‘That was a good job, I enjoyed that’. But it is nerve-wracking – more so than TV, because you can't do any re-takes.”