Chris Barnes had a late call to take the role of Pastor Manders in Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen's study of lust, love and betrayal, at Harrogate Theatre.

"I was a late arrival on the scene; in fact the first time I met Hannah director Hannah Chissick was on the Wednesday before we started rehearsals," says Chris, ahead of tonight's opening performance.

No matter the short notice, he is delighted to be appearing in Ibsen's foreboding portrayal of a community whose repressive and hypocritical sense of morality devastates lives.

"The play is such a fantastic piece of work and the role of Pastor Manders is such a great thing to spend one's time on. There's such a tremendous excitement at the end of each act as you're plunged into another layer of information, all descending to this awful ending.

"It amazes me that over a century ago, Ibsen was grappling with topics in Ghosts that are so relevant today: euthanasia, adultery, incest; they're all in this one play."

Pastor Manders is a conservative thinker, frightened for his reputation and disgusted by free thinking. "That sums up the premise of the play," says Chris. "Do we do what our parents and the church tell us to do or do we do what out hearts tell us to do? One route leads to hypocrisy and the other leads to revolutionary thinking."

Manders has a secret from his past that inevitably emerges in the play. "That's another thematic element of the play. Every person has a past, and they're made up of elements of that past. The 'Ghosts' of the title can be interpreted as things from the past that make us what we are."

Chris Barnes has a past in Harrogate, but relax, there is nothing secret, nothing controversial to reveal. "I did The Taming Of The Shrew with the Durham University Theatre at the first Harrogate Festival Fringe in 1969... in a bingo hall," he recalls.

"There was a second-hand car showroom in Station Parade and above that was a bingo hall, and that's where we performed."

He returned to Harrogate Theatre in the late 1970s with the Young Vic in Michael Bogdanov's re-telling of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. "That production was a battle between the Reverend Christopher Host, who runs an annual story-telling competition, and the Miller, whose tale has been banned. I played the Reverend, so, as with Pastor Manders in Ghosts, it was another fight between respectability and muckiness," he says.

Today marks not one but two openings for Chris. The long delayed film version of Fat Slags finally has its moment, beginning a run at Vue Cinemas, York. "Oh it's out, is it?" he says.

Viz magazine, the creators of the Fat Slags, have already disowned the film. "I'm not saying anything - I haven't seen it yet!" says Chris.

At least he had fun filming his role: "The Fat Slags get themselves imprisoned in the Tower of London, and I play the warder. They only way they can get out is to seduce the warder, so I had to be leapt on by Sophie Thompson and given it!"

Ghosts, Harrogate Theatre, tonight until November 6, 7.30pm, plus 2.30pm matinee on October 30. Box office: 01423 502116.

Updated: 16:15 Thursday, October 14, 2004