Actor Jonathon Morris is still best-known for playing Adrian Boswell in 80s sitcom Bread. But he tells ANDREW WHITE that his true passion has always been for theatre...

ACTORS who've starred in long-running TV series often complain of stereotyping. Jonathon Morris, though, who spent several years playing daydreaming Adrian Boswell in BBC sitcom Bread, doesn't believe a word of it.

"If you're talented enough, you can't be typecast. Typecasting is when you can only play one part," declares Jonathon, currently starring in Beside the Seaside in Bournemouth's comedy season.

"A lot of TV celebrities aren't actually capable of playing anything other than the thing that made them famous. To me that's not acting."

Fortunately Jonathon has managed to avoid the actors' curse - and he says it's all down to his old-fashioned work ethic.

"I've worked very hard in my career to make sure my range is varied and wide.

"This year I've played a 1930s war veteran, an Irish tramp from County Cork, an absolutely demonic middle-aged character and now this. I've been around for a long time and people know that I enjoy variety."

In Beside the Seaside, Jonathon plays a nave young newlywed who is just one of a mixed bunch of characters thrown together in a Bournemouth boarding house sometime in the 1950s.

"Henry, my character, is a very simple man. In fact, my own wife says that other people feel sorry for me. He's very much in the Frank Spencer mould - he's almost an island on his own.

"Probably the best scene in the play is where a Yorkshireman much older than me tries to sit me down and explain the birds and the bees. It's very, very funny. My character doesn't understand what he's talking about."

It's almost as confusing as Jonathon's own experiences of sex education. Like most other children of the 60s, it was all explained to him through stuffy school lessons that involved watching TV programmes about rabbits.

"It put me off for a long time!" he jokes.

Born in Manchester, Jonathon moved with his family to Chichester, West Sussex when he was 13.

As a schoolboy he was bursting with energy and tried his hand at everything. He loved athletics and trained as a musician and ballet dancer. Hard as it is to imagine Adrian Boswell landing anybody a vicious right hook, he even boxed for a while.

I suggest that Jonathon might have done well in one of those celebrity boxing matches - but he is horrified at the very idea.

"I would never do anything like that. The notion of celebrity has been completely undermined and ridiculed by these kind of programmes.

Despite being best-known for a TV part, Jonathon insists his first love is theatre.

"I'm stimulated by the animal, physical act of performing. I can't stand being backstage. The only thing I enjoy is walking on stage."

Beside the Seaside is at the Pier Theatre, Bournemouth from May 20. Box office: 01202 456456.