ACTRESS Stephanie Cole is swapping Life As We Know It for a bitter comic farewell to independence in So Long Life.

While her latest television role alongside Richard Wilson is earning good reviews and audiences she herself is treading the boards in a nationwide tour of the new play, which comes to Malvern next week.

In it she plays the part of an 85-year-old woman, but television audiences should be used to her appearances playing women of, shall we say, 'mature years'.

After all she has starred alongside some of Britain's best comic actors - she was Mrs Featherstone in Open All Hours with Ronnie Barker and David Jason, she appeared in A Bit of A Do, again with David Jason, not to mention Soldiering On, Waiting for God, Tenko and now Life As We Know It.

That ability has been evident from her earliest days in acting when at the age of 17 she played a 90-year-old in her first professional appearance at Bristol Old Vic.

Acting was a true passion, she said, although she does not come from a theatrical background.

"My mum loved the theatre so whenever we could afford to we would go," she explained.

Since those early days she has become a star of stage and television screen, but said: "They are very different. I love the rehearsal time - that period of discovery in both - and in the theatre I love the first few months, but in a long run after that I don't enjoy it.

"I love the fact that with television every day is different."

Unlike some actors, she always watches her own television shows "not as a pleasure, but to learn. It is a painful process, but hopefully you can get better by watching".

So Long Life is Peter Nichols' first new work for 15 years and Stephanie said: "All the wonderful stuff he wrote before - Privates on Parade, Born in the Gardens, a Day in the Death of Joe Egg - and here he is writing a new piece just as gritty and just as witty. It is a bloody good evening in the theatre."

The play tackles a subject that has become very topical - long-term care of the elderly as it focuses on 85-year-old Alice, whose children want to put her in a home against her will.

Her co-stars are Paul Shelley and Cheryl Campbell, best-known for her roles in Pennies From Heaven and Chariots of Fire.

Stephanie is delighted to be bringing the play to Malvern's Festival Theatre. "It is a most-wonderful theatre and the doing-up of it has been a great success. It is something everybody should be very proud of."

So Long Life is on at Malvern's Festival Theatre from next Monday until September 29.

Evening performances are at 8pm with Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm.

Tickets, priced from £12, are available from the box office on 01684 892277.