TWO well-known TV actors star in the Octagon Theatre's first production this year - Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs.

Jeff Hordley, Emmerdale's Cain Dingle, and William Ash, of Burn It and Where the Heart Is, take the roles of Nipple and Ingham in the David Halliwell play.

In Emmerdale this week, Cain Dingle was sent down for 30 days for contempt of court as he tried to defend his cousin, who is accused of murdering her husband, Chris Tate.

This opportune event meant that Hordley was out of the series and able to appear in the Octagon production.

Hordley has been in Emmerdale for three-and-a-half years and, unlike some actors, has no hang-ups about appearing in a soap.

"I have learned a lot from appearing in Emmerdale," he said.

And he certainly has no plans to leave the series permanently. "But it is down to the scriptwriters," he said.

"Cain is a 'baddie' and something really bad could happen to him."

Hordley likes to "keep his hand in" by doing theatre work and was last at the Octagon two years ago in Strindberg's Miss Julie.

He was introduced to Little Malcolm at drama school and fell in love with it then. He thinks that every character in the play is really exciting.

His Nipple character is nothing at all like the dodgy Dingle. "Nipple is Malcolm's oldest friend and a bit of a nerd," he said.

A number of frisky bedroom scenes in the soap, including those with cousin Charity, have put Hordley in the sex symbol category.

"So I believe," he said somewhat disbelievingly. " I think it's funny, as does my wife."

Hordley was married in August to actress Zoe Henry, who has appeared as a vet in Emmerdale. The couple met at drama school nine years ago.

After Little Malcolm, Hordley will be back at Emmerdale. "It seems the worse you are, the better people like it," he said.

William Ash is instantly recognisable from Where the Heart Is, in which he played Pam Ferris's character's son, Stephen.

But he also gained a younger following from the cult series Burn It, on BBC 3.

Like many teenage boys, Ash dreamed of a career in football. But he was out of the game for 12 months with a broken leg, and caught the acting bug.

He was the last character to be cast in Little Malcolm and one of the reasons for his enthusiasm in taking the part was that Jeff Hordley was in it.

The play - a satirical comedy set in the mid 1960s - shows how art student Malcolm dreams of ruling the world but cannot even pluck up the courage to invite a girl to bed.

When he is suspended from his studies for being a disruptive influence, Malcolm forms a revolutionary new political party with Ingham, Wick and Nipple. As the group's fantasies become more ambitious, events take a sinister turn.

The play runs from January 29 to February 21.