Karl contemplates Christie

I've been playing the guest maniac in The Bill in four hour-long episodes. Nick Cawdron, who with his wife Semeli Economou is producing Anna Christie - one of Eugene O'Neill's early realist plays - is in my gang. I shove his head in a deep-fat fryer - that's how we became acquainted. Nick and Semeli's production company, Creative Entertainment, is putting the play on at the Riverside, and Semeli is directing.

The two of them have quite a history of doing stuff. They employ good actors whose names might not immediately spring to mind, but when you see them you realise their credits are huge. You'll be impressed by the young Danish actress Christina Anthony laying the title role made famous by Greta Garbo in the film version.

I know when I starred in Me And My Girl in the West End people would lean out of their cabs and say, "Hello, Karl. What, no television work?" You think to yourself, "What do you mean? I'm in the West End, come along and see." But it's an effort to go to the theatre. Putting your bum down and just flicking that switch on TV is easy - but it's so rewarding when you do go to the theatre. It's the difference between being at the foot-ball game and watching a game on television. Completely different.

Nick and Semeli have to be applauded - they're working incessantly on different things, not just the plays. They are doing a couple of short films later in the year, then adapting a Graham Greene novella for the stage. They really are motoring along.