GERALDINE James was doing her home chores when the phone rang for her Evening Press interview. From next week, she is away from home, performing on tour in Oxford Stage Company's revival of Home, a rarely performed work by Yorkshire playwright David Storey.

The tour opens at York Theatre Royal on Tuesday. "I've never been to York in my life, so I'm very much looking forward to coming," she says. What took you so long? "No one's ever asked! I've never filmed there and I've never been asked to perform on stage there, but I have done a lot of Yorkshire roles.

"I did this voice-over once and I said, 'what accent do you want me to use?', and they said, 'oh, just use your own, Yorkshire'. I thought, 'hang on, I'm not from Yorkshire', but I was delighted as it must have been at the time I was doing Band Of Gold."

Rather than Yorkshire, Home is set in London, where two eccentric gentlemen, Harry and Jack, are wiling away the afternoon, talking on the terrace of a garden until the genteel calm is shattered by raucous Marjorie and Kathleen (Geraldine's role). Through the meeting of these two odd couples, it becomes clear that all may not be as it first appears and they all have stories to tell that mask their broken lives.

"Originally, David Storey had a hotel setting in mind, and he was telling us that it came as something of a surprise even to him when he decided they were in fact in the kind of institution that's thankfully not there any more. It's set just before they closed mental institutions down and people were turned out into what's laughably called care in the community," says Geraldine. "But it's not a loony bin; it's not One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It works best with that element of surprise about where exactly they are, when the truth is allowed to creep up on you."

Geraldine is playing the character first performed by Mona Washbourne in the 1970 premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

"Kathleen is a very simple soul, not as in stupid, but very clear, whereas the men are very complicated and whimsical, never saying what they mean. The way they deal with their situation is much more roundabout, whereas the women deal with things directly."

As she prepares for the tour's opening night in York, Geraldine is thriving on working in rehearsal with David Calder, Christopher Godwin and Sandra Voe. "As I get older the parts on telly get inevitably narrower, playing mothers because TV is a young person's medium and everyone becomes a bit two-dimensional. I love theatre because it brings you back to being three-dimensional. The three or four weeks' rehearsal lets you really get inside the character," she says.

No wonder, Geraldine feels so at home in Home.

Home, Oxford Stage Company, York Theatre Royal, October 27 to 30, 7.30pm, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets: £3.50 to £17.50 on 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:58 Friday, October 22, 2004