ACTRESS Ann Rye is tailor made for her next role as a clairvoyant in Bolton Octagon's production of Blithe Spirit.

In fact, the actress should have foreseen that she was destined to appear in the play long before auditioning for the role.

Ann plays the eccentric clairvoyant Madam Arcati in the Octagon's production of the Noel Coward play, due to take to the stage from March 7 to 30.

And she has a head start on most other actresses trying to portray the character -- as she herself is psychic.

Ann smiled: "Yes, the role is very appropriate. I was sceptical about the whole clairvoyant thing until I saw my mother sitting across the room from me saying 'it's all so simple'.

"It is not so strange on the face of it, but that was about 10 years after she had died."

However, it was when Ann started to research a musical she was writing about clairvoyants that she knew she had a certain skill.

She said: "I was hoping to write a musical about the life of a clairvoyant in the 1920s. I decided that in order to do it I had better meet with one or two of them. The people I met were amazing, but each one when they saw me looked me in the eye and said 'but you can do this yourself can't you'.

"I have had a few out of body experiences and they have got quite frightening and I have also had psychic experiences on other people's behalf. I have also done readings for fun for friends, and for charity.

"But it is not something I would encourage too much. I think that 99 per cent of the population have the ability to be psychic but do not act on their feelings.

"I am not too much like the character I play in Blithe Spirit. She is larger than life -- what you see is what you get. She also belongs to a time when inviting a psychic to the house to entertain was a fashionable thing to do.

"I am also different to her in that I do not encourage psychic experiences -- after all life really has got to be lived."

Tickets to see Ann in Blithe Spirit are from the Octagon box office on 520661.