CityLife

Rachael's a Hollywood heiress!

DAVID Mamet is a man who knows a thing or two about the bear-pit that is contemporary Hollywood and he unleashed much of his satirical ire on the place in his play Speed-The-Plow.

Two producers Bob Gould and Charlie Fox circle each other like sharks as they finesse the deal on a brainless buddy blockbuster starring current Tinseltown golden boy Doug Brown.

Then Gould makes the mistake of forcing his put-upon personal assistant Karen to read a new spiritual self-help novel. She becomes so enthusiastic about it that she tries to persuade the duo to take the artistic high-road and make this into a film instead, flying in the face of the received Hollywood wisdom that no one ever went broke by underestimating the audience.

Famously, Madonna played Karen in the first off-Broadway production of the play, but for his Karen, Chris Honer, who's directing the new version of the play at the Library theatre has chosen Preston-born actress Rachael Hayden. On stage, she has worked at the Edinburgh Festival and Glasgow's Citizen's Theatre, as well as appearing on Coronation Street and Shameless.

Rachael simply laughs when asked about the inevitability of comparisons with Madge.

Ridiculous

"Well, it's obviously absolutely ridiculous and you can't worry too much about that. I hope I get better reviews than she did, though! I didn't see it myself, obviously, but I think people were just waiting for her to fail because that's what they wanted to write about.

"They did say she seemed very awkward, but that's what the character's like. So was she a bad actress? We've invited her to come and see it, though!"

Like a lot of young actresses, Rachael has had little choice other than to take what TV work she's been offered over the last few years. But she's been itching to get back to live theatre.

TV

Rachael says she was first bitten by the theatrical bug when she joined the youth theatre run by Debbie Carter at Preston's Playhouse Theatre at 14.

"I need to do it," she insists. "You can easily forget what it was you really dreamt of doing when you were dancing and prancing around at the age of four. Of course, doing TV isn't easy and I would never say that but there's such an adrenaline rush and sense of excitement about going on stage.

"You don't ever want to lose that feeling. This is just such an exciting project to be involved in and so demanding and challenging."

Speed-The-Plow is at the Library Theatre until Saturday, June 17. é6 - é19.50. Call 0161 236 7110. Leeds University lecturer, professor Stephen Bottoms, an expert on contemporary American drama, will be giving a pre-show talk about the work of David Mamet on Wednesday, May 24 at 6.30pm.