CLARE Wilkie didn't have to wait long to land her first role after quitting EastEnders. "I finished filming in mid-February, and by mid-March, I'd signed up to do Inconceivable at Leeds," says Clare, who had played Sandra, the estranged and indeed strange wife of Beppe di Marco for a year and a half.

After a regular diet of Sandra, Clare is now at the West Yorkshire Playhouse portraying six characters in Ben Elton's comic tale of the desperate attempts of a couple to make a baby, and she is enjoying her return to live performance.

"When I left EastEnders, my agent was keen for me to do more stage work, as I'd only done two pieces of professional theatre before," Clare says.

"I'd been in Much Ado About Nothing in the open air at Exeter, where I played Hero; she's quite sweet and trampled-upon, so I tried to make her a bit quirky!

"Then last May I did a new Barry Heath play Rats, Buckets & Bombs at Nottingham Playhouse, which was quite a weird one because we were all playing under 13 years old. You end up behaving like you're 13, so everyone said 'Oh, you're playing yourself then!'"

Stranger still for Clare, she was the only girl in the cast, and the director and crew were all men too. "By the end it was like a testosterone overload! I became a friend for life with the girl I shared digs with!"

Although Clare Wilkie's professional stage CV makes for brief reading, she is not an inexperienced actress. This former convent schoolgirl attended theatre school from the age of nine, first at Red Roofs in Maidenhead and then from 14 at the famous Sylvia Young school, where Denise Van Outen and Dani Behr were among her contemporaries.

She has been a regular face on television too, not only appearing in EastEnders but also in Eldorado, David Copperfield, A Touch Of Love, Berkeley Square, Forever Green and Covington Cross, while her film credits include Metroland, Company Of Wolves and Hope And Glory.

While EastEnders undoubtedly boosted her profile to a new level, there were frustrations too. "When you work in a soap you have a beginning, a middle and more middle, and then they can change your character completely," she says. "A play has a beginning, a middle and an ending, and I prefer that."

She has responded to the different requirements of live performance, not least the demands of comic performance. "It's been a challenge to do comedy," Clare says. "They've told me to be bigger, louder, and I've learnt a lot. It's been a good little number for me to do; it's been nice to move from TV into theatre to learn more of my craft."

At 27, Clare is a willing learner, having had an awakening since her theatre school days. "I ended up pretty precocious there. You do make your mistakes, as anyone will, and you discover that respect is the way ahead. Learning from other people is the important thing," she says.

Clare is keen to stretch herself in her range of roles: "I was becoming lazy as an actress by the time I was leaving EastEnders. I'd been very lucky with Sandra. I'd had some great stories and an instant impact, but when a new producer took over, he said he didn't quite know what to do with my character. In the end Sandra became so irrational. I found there was nowhere for her to go, so it was time for me to go."

However, it could be au revoir rather than adieu to scary Sandra. "They have left it open for me to return, which is a good way to leave it," says Clare.

After all, in soap land, anything is conceivable for an actress now concentrating on matters Inconceivable.

Inconceivable is running at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until June 16. Box office: 0113 213 7700.