It might be a spoof of an infamous erotic novel, but 51 Shades Of Maggie isn’t really raunchy and explicit, as former Emmerdale star Adele Silva tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

IGNORE the hunk with the chain draped around his toned torso. He may be in the publicity picture for the first UK tour of Leesa Harker’s hit spoof of Fifty Shades Of Grey, but 51 Shades Of Maggie turns out to be a one-woman show.

Playing loveable Maggie Muff on a 27-date tour that began two nights ago in Newcastle and places its big rotating bed on the York Barbican stage on Monday will be Adele Silva, the former Emmerdale soap minx and lads’ mag pin-up.

“The most important thing to me was that it was a one-woman show. It’s the first time I’ve done one,” says Adele, who came through an initial audition and two recalls to secure the role of Maggie, a working-class girl on an “ever-so-slightly filthy” journey of love, booze and whips.

Billed as a girls’ night out filled with naughty bits, the play follows the bedroom progress of unemployed Maggie Muff, who meets hunky, dreamy Mr Big at her back to work interview at the social security office. But will his private room of pain put her off? Wait and see.

51 Shades Of Maggie had begun life as a Facebook spoof blog of E L James’s Fifty Shades Of Grey that went viral, subsequently being adapted for the stage by Leesa Parker.

After runs in Belfast, Glasgow and Dublin this year with Scottish comedy actress Leah Macrae in the title role, Adele takes over for the UK tour, turning Maggie into a Londoner.

“I’m quite excited,” she said, in a moment of understatement as she anticipated her opening night as the new Maggie.

“To be honest, a load of feedback on what people are expecting is that it must be really raunchy and explicit, but it’s not. It’s a send-up of the S&M fantasy world. If you can imagine a girl who gets everything wrong and is very clumsy, it’s more humorous than erotic. I managed to see it in Belfast, and it was a laugh a minute; every other line is a joke.”

Adele was speaking just before her dress rehearsal and first show this Tuesday. “How I play her, Maggie is from London; she’s working class, quite vulnerable,” she says. “Everyone knows a Maggie Muff, a nice girl, if a bit rough around the edges, who’s looking for Mr Right.”

In creating her interpretation of Maggie, Adele draws on a couple of reality TV stars.

“There are certain characteristics I have emphasised, such as making her likeable, like Stacey Solomon from The X Factor, and also the brashness of someone like Charlotte [Charlotte-Letitia Crosby] from Geordie Shore, who’s now in the Celebrity Big Brother house,” she says.

Adele describes playing Maggie as a “completely fresh challenge, completely different from anything I’ve done before”. “As an actress, that’s what you want; the challenge of contrasting roles,” she says.

“My last role was Cathy in Wuthering Heights at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon in May, and that’s what you dream about, doing something very different, especially if people have preconceived ideas of you from one role.”

That role would be the feisty Kelly Windsor in the Yorkshire village soap Emmerdale, first from 1993 to 2000 and then returning in 2005 when she vowed to be “the biggest bitch in British soap”, before leaving again in 2007.

Trained at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, she made her television debut in Doctor Who at the age of eight, playing Squeak in the final story of the Sylvester McCoy era.

“I’m 32 and it’s been amazing to be able to do what I’m doing for 24 years, and the good thing about acting is that there are no age limits,” says Adele.

Nor are there limits to her variety of engagements, from her lads’ mag days in FHM, Maxim and Front to roles in such films as Jam and the cult horror flick Doghouse; from starring opposite Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp in the short film Karma Magnet to appearing with Robert Englund in the comedy horror movie Strippers Vs Werewolves.

On top of all that, she won an episode of Celebrity Weakest Link and was such hot stuff in the 2008 series of Hell’s Kitchen that she finished second to Irish boxer Barry McGuigan.

“It was extremely exciting being trained by a Michelin-starred chef and you’re picking up skills for life that are great if you’re cooking for a party,” she says.

York will be seeing more of Adele from December 13 when she plays the Wicked Queen in Simon Barry’s Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House.

“I can’t wait! I did panto last year for the first time since 2005, covering for my friend Lisa Riley in Southsea, where I did two weeks while she was in Strictly Come Dancing and I loved it,” she says.

That show was Snow White too, and after her fortnight stretch as Queen Malevola, Simon Barry was quick to invite her to play Snow White’s evil stepmother once more.

“Simon called me up and offered me the part and I thought ‘fabulous’,” says Adele. “I can’t wait to do it, and I have a place in Leeds, so that’s convenient for me.”

• Adele Silva stars in 51 Shades Of Maggie at York Barbican on Monday, 7.30pm, and Futurist Theatre, Scarborough, October 11 and 12, 7.30pm. Box office: York, 0844 854 2757; Scarborough, 01723 365789 or 374000. Suitable for age 16 upwards.

• Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs runs at the Grand Opera House, York, from December 13 to January 5 2014. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york