Rochford actress Karen Barnes is looking forward to performing close to home next week she tells SALLY KING

When a handsome young man walked up to actress Karen Barnes at a party she thought he had the most novel chat-up line she'd ever heard.

Karen, who will be appearing at the Cliffs in Lanza the Last Serenade next week, soon learnt Philip Giles wasn't just spinning a line when he said: "You're the girl in the photo!"

It turned out that he had kept a poster-size picture of Karen on his wall all through university - and he still had it.

The picture had been taken by their mutual friend Ian McDonald, when he and Karen had both been studying at Southend Tech.

Karen didn't know that Ian had enlarged the pictures - or that he'd given them to friends.

However, she soon realised who Philip was - the best friend that Ian had spoken about. It didn't take her long to realise that Philip was to be her best friend too - the couple married last September.

Now the pair live in Rochford, a stone's throw from the hospital where Karen was born, and conveniently close to Leigh where Philip works as a solicitor. Not surprisingly, Ian was Philip's best man.

Karen was brought up in Rayleigh, the daughter of taxi-driver Max Barnes and doctor's receptionist Bettina.

She was not sorry to leave Park School (now Sweyne Park School) as she had already set her heart on a stage career.

Of course, mothers do worry about youngsters and the stage and Bettina was no exception.

"She insisted that I do a secretarial course," remembers Karen. This was what led her to Southend Tech, where she bumped into Ian. They had previously met some years before when they had both joined Leigh Operatic and Dramatic Society and performed in Carousel.

When she left Southend Karen went to Barking College to do a B-Tech in Drama.

After that she went to the prestigious Mountview drama school.

Although there have been times when Karen has needed to call on her secretarial skills on the whole she has found work on stage. "I've been very lucky," she says.

She has worked in pantomime, including playing Aladdin in Exeter just months after her marriage, and has appeared in Godspell.

She even appeared at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff in The Hollow, Jack and the Giant and Peter Pan under the previous artistic director Chris Dunham.

"There have been times when I haven't worked and I've needed to do bits and pieces of temping. There's work around if you're prepared to do anything. I have worked a lot for Nationwide - in the loan centre, not the building society - and the boss there has been really brilliant about me going off for auditions.

"Some places don't like the idea of me going off - which is fine, but at the end of the day I want to act and I don't want to work in a bank."

Karen landed the part in Lanza when the show opened last year. It's the story of the American tenor Mario Lanza, who was often classed as the best of his generation. He died at the age of 38 but still has a huge fan following.

Karen plays Lanza's wife Betty. "I'd never heard of Lanza," she confesses. "When my agent called me and was talking about him, I thought 'who is this man?"

However, she's pretty much an expert on him now having played the role in two national tours.

"He has a massive following," she explains. "The show is a cult thing almost.

"Older women turn up wearing brooches with Mario Lanza on them."

She finds the fanaticism of some of the more ardent Lanza fans "a bit scary". She shivers slightly: "When I come off stage they say 'Hello Betty' and I think 'Betty's been dead for years'."

It's all a far cry from a childhood dream of a stage career and Saturdays spent at Sylvia Young's stage school in London ("I did more adverts when I was about 15 than I have as an adult actress").

Karen is now living her dream, walking out on stage every night to perform.

This tour of Lanza ends in Southend, and as yet she isn't sure what the future holds. "I think I've sorted out a pantomime," she says. "But apart from that - well as my agent says 'If you do this job, you'll be out of work'!"

Karen Barnes will appear in Lanza, the Last Serenade at the Cliffs starting on Monday. Tickets are available from the box office, phone 01702 351135.

Sitting pretty - Karen Barnes relaxes by the pond in her Rochford garden before getting ready to appear on stage as Betty Lanza

Picture: STEPHEN LLOYD

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