ACTRESS Hannah Gordon is due in Bradford this weekend as a special guest at a rare showing of a JB Priestley film that she starred in.

The star of stage and screen will watch the BBC adaption of Johnson over Jordan, which has its first airing in nearly 50 years. The screening will be followed by a discussion involving Miss Gordon, who starred in the film with Sir Ralph Richardson and Paul Eddington.

The screening, in the Cubby Broccoli Cinema on Sunday at 2pm, is regarded as quite a coup for the Bradford-based J B Priestley Society and the National Media Museum.

The discussion will be led by J B Priestley Society chairman Lee Hanson, Head of English at Bradford Grammar School. Also participating will be Priestley’s stepson Nicolas Hawkes, who lives in Ilkley.

Johnson over Jordan was first staged in 1939, with the BBC film adaptation being aired in the mid-1960s. In 2001, a stage version ran at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, starring Mirfield-born actor Patrick Stewart. The play was recently put on by students at Bradford Grammar School, with the performance earning praise from Priestley’s son Tom, who came to Bradford to see the staging.

In the film, which portrays a journey through the past and present life of the recently-deceased Johnson, Hannah Gordon plays Freda, daughter of Robert Johnson. The film depicts Johnson's battles with bureaucracy and the distractions of the bright lights, namely beautiful girls and strong drink at the Jungle Hot Spot night club.

Miss Gordon's TV credits include roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Telford’s Change and My Wife Next Door, and she had the memorable part of the woman who killed Victor Meldrew in the final episode of One Foot In The Grave.

More recently, she has appeared in TV’s Taggart, Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders, Monarch of the Glen and Heartbeat.

The actress survived a tough childhood in Edinburgh. Her mother died when she was nine and her father, hospitalised for long periods of her early life, died two years later. She trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow then went into rep in Scotland.

For more about Sunday's screening, visit nationalmediamuseum.org.uk