Hedda Gabler is regarded as one of theatre's most intriguing female roles and surely one that most actresses yearn to play.

It is Gillian Kearney's first stab at the role and she's embracing the challenge. She stars in a new adaptation of Hedda Gabler at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

The theatre's first co-production with the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, it marks the centenary of Ibsen's death.

"I didn't think twice about doing it, " says Gillian, 33. "The biggest challenge is that Hedda is emotional but doesn't show her emotions, there's this great suppression. She seems cold but has a high energy, it's just that she doesn't let it out. She's never really been touched by a man, not even her father showed her affection, and it has left her reserved.

"I barely leave the stage but I do have the freedom to be cold and sharp with everyone - if I'm irritable I can take it out on the rest of the cast!"

Arguably Ibsen's strongest heroine, Hedda Gabler is controversial because she's unconventional. Bored and frustrated in a dull marriage, she becomes elusive and manipulative.

"I'm trying to play her with truth, she's human after all, " says Gillian.

"She made a massive mistake marrying this man. Sometimes she tries to be a conventional wife for his sake, but ultimately she can't change who she is. She married because she felt like time was running out, her father's death left her in financial difficulty and she wasn't going to parties anymore.

She's incredibly frustrated and is in denial about being pregnant because she doesn't feel as though she's lived enough to be a mother.

"She loathes compromise but she won't allow herself to escape. The name Hedda means 'battler', she has a constant battle within herself and I sympathise with that."

The play starts with Hedda and her brilliant but unimaginative husband Tesman returning from honeymoon.

While most new wives would be happy, Hedda is consumed with frustration and despair. Having been brought up an aristocrat, she finds her bourgeois married life unbearable and hardly attempts to hide her lack of interest in Tesman and his family.

When Eilert Lovborg - Tesman's old academic rival with whom Hedda has an unconsummated romantic connection - turns up she descends further into unhappiness, resorting to deceit and manipulation.

"Eilert was an alcoholic and a failure but has reformed, " says Gillian.

"Hedda resents that, it's like saying: "I can't have peace of mind, why should you?" She sees in Eilert what her husband isn't, but it would take great courage for her to leave her marriage and she's too proud and terrified of scandal and humiliation.

But she's also terrified of her bourgeois life.

"Eilert is competing with her husband for a job and she gets a perverse enjoyment out of watching the petty little man she married cope with it all. She's a voyeur, cold and detached.

But at the same time she can't believe this is how they must live."

This new adaptation is by Bradford's Mike Poulton, whose translations include Turgenev's Fortune's Fool which earned him a Tony Award nomination.

The set is designed by Ruari Murchison who designed the Playhouse's Christmas show, Alice in Wonderland.

"The set's dark and oppressive, the colour of dried blood, " says Gillian.

"It's an old house that drains the energy out of Hedda, she hates it."

Gillian shot to fame aged 14 playing Debbie McGrath, Damon Grant's diabetic girlfriend, in Brookside. "I was at the Liverpool Youth Theatre when I got the role, it was a great learning experience, " she says.

Debbie was originally intended to appear in three episodes but proved so popular the role lasted over a year, leading to 1987 spin-off Damon and Debbie, partly filmed in Bradford.

Ironically, Damon got a job as a groundsman at Valley Parade - where Gillian's real-life brother, footballer Tom Kearney, now plays as a midfielder with Bradford City.

"I have happy memories of Bradford, especially filming at the National Museum of Photography, " says Gillian. "I'm staying in my brother's friend's flat in Shipley while I'm here for the play so I'll be over at Valley Parade to watch him!"

Gillian went on to play the young Shirley in the film Shirley Valentine, got a first class drama degree and has since enjoyed a versatile career in theatre, films and TV drama. Her theatrical CV includes an impressive number of leading Shakespearean roles and TV credits include Sex, Chips and Rock 'n' Roll, The Forsyte Saga and Clocking Off.

She's currently appearing in Channel 4's hit Shameless - "great fun, a kind of organised chaos."

Hedda Gabler runs at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from February 17 to March 11. For tickets ring (0113) 213 7700