Griff Rhys Jones doesn't think of himself as an actor but he does like a farce, reports CHARLES HUTCHINSON

COMIC Griff Rhys Jones has made a habit of starring in farces. That great comedy actress Alison Steadman has never before appeared in a Feydeau play.

Former Goodie Graeme Garden and first-time director Deborah Norton have had the foresight to bring them together at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds for Horse And Carriage, Garden's new adaptation of Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallieres' French farce, Le Mariage de Barillon.

Griff plays hapless groom Barillon opposite Alison's lustful, multiple-marrying, man-eating Madame Jambart, his unintended bride when he had set his sights on her virginal 18-year-old daughter.

"This is my second Feydeau - I did An Absolute Turkey in 1993 - and it must be about my tenth farce," says Griff, who is cultivating a particularly French moustache for the role of fastidious rou Barillon. "I've done Charley's Aunt, Plunder, Trumpets And Raspberries and The Front Page, which actually isn't a farce but I was accused of trying to turn into one."

Reflecting on his stage curriculum vitae being dominated by comedies, Griff comments: "Yes, I've done a lot... but I'm not really an actor in the full sense of the word. I couldn't say I could do Shakespeare but I can do farce, though whether that will continue... fingers crossed."

Griff, who has worked with Garden and Norton on the BBC Radio 4 series Do Go On, always faces the predicament that blights any well-known comic television performer, however often he does a play.

"Some reviewers give the impression that they simply expect you to come on and be funny, and any other interpretation is of no interest them," says Griff, who is best known for his long-standing double act with Mel Smith. "Because they know you from telly they think you'll do a few routines to establish you're a comedian."

Griff has long learned to put up with such prejudice. Instead, he just enjoys the pleasures of taking on a new role. "This play has all the essentials of a good Feydeau; it's about lust and sexuality in a proper, real sense, and not just nudge, nudge," he says.

He sees similarities with his role in An Absolute Turkey, a similarity that came about through Feydeau writing for a regular company and particular actors. "They are both turkey cocks, a certain type of sexually-driven male who goes around threatening everyone but then jumps six foot high if anyone says boo to him," he says.

One such person is Madame Jambart, one of those man-hunter roles that Alison Steadman made her trademark with her performance as Beverly in Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party.

Like Griff, Alison will be performing for the first time at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, where her partner, Michael Elwyn, appeared in Arthur Miller's Broken Glass in May. She is no stranger to Leeds, having filmed the role of Betty in Kay Mellor's Fat Friends in the city last year (with a second filming stint to come early next year) and she has worked previously with Playhouse artistic director Jude Kelly on the Chichester Festival and West End production of JB Priestley's When We Are Married.

Given Alison's comic pedigree, be it playing Mrs Bennett in the BBC's Pride And Prejudice or appearing in Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane at London's Arts Theatre this year, it is a surprise to note the absence of Feydeau's farces from her credits. "But Feydeau farces are not done that often," she points out. Point taken.

She is enjoying her first encounter with the French master of door-banging, trouser-dropping comedy. "I used to love watching Brian Rix farces on TV, and Feydeau takes all that running in and out of doors to extremes," Alison says.

"But comedy has to have a basis of belief, which this play does. That's why it must be kept in its period setting. If you don't have that base you have nowhere to go with it, but if you genuinely believe they're in a panic, they're in a state, then you can take the audience up above the bubbling comedy surface."

Horse And Carriage offers the opportunity for a particularly broad form of comic acting. "There's not much subtlety, is there?! That's nice from an acting point of view, because it lets you go for the big performance," says Alison.

She may be playing a mother-in-law but Madame Jambart is not in the Les Dawson mode. "She's not a battle axe, but she is over-bearing! She's a 'kissie' character, on the cheeks, not the lips I should add. She's the kind of person who feels like a young girl of 18 when she finds she's getting married again and starts trying to behave like it, skipping around as if she's young again."

Alison's eyes light up at the prospect of such a delicious role. "The man-hunting woman is always a good part to play - that desperation for a bloke - because her plight might be sad but it's also very humorous," she says.

Until December 1, love and marriage, Griff Rhys Jones and Alison Steadman, will go together like a Horse And Carriage. For tickets, ring 0113 213 7700.