Katherine MacAlister speaks to former Footballer’s Wives actress Susie Amy about her latest stage role

Susie Amy? Gorgeous, funny, FHM pin-up and adventurer, who manages to look as glamorous in a bikini as she does in her Arctic snow gear.

Yes, the ex-Footballers Wives actress is coming to Oxford to star in Murder On The Nile alongside Kate O’Mara and you can almost hear the male population cheering as she approaches.

“This is the second leg of the tour and I’m enjoying it more and more as time goes on,” she says. “Because the plot is strong I can just go on stage and do as good a job as I can, so I’ve really got into it, although getting the night bus from Glasgow wasn’t a highlight,” she laughs.

As for TV’s 71 Degrees North, in which she competed in a knock-out attempt to reach the Arctic first, Susie came runner-up. “I’d never even been camping, let alone go to the Arctic, but I signed up because it was something different and a real challenge,” she says. “A week before I got the fear and wondered if I could actually do it. But as soon as I got to the airport and met everyone else I realised we were all in the same boat and relaxed.

“It was an experience I’ll never forget and I made some great friends out there,” Susie remembers.

So what was the scariest moment? “Swimming under the glacier, because it’s so cold that your breathing quickens, and if you inhale the water you basically drown. It was very scary. I really felt as if I was in danger,” she says.

71 Degrees also helped quell any critics who’d passed Susie off as a bimbo because of the tabloid-style format of Footballers Wives, in which she played Chardonnay Lane-Pascoe to such effect it launched her career and made her a household name overnight.

“I had no idea because it was my first big job, whilst I would now. But back then there was nothing like it on TV.”

So did she worry she’d be typecast? “I don’t think I can even answer that,” she says. “I have hugely talented friends who are waitressing, so you can’t not take on an acting job in case you get typecast.”

But then acting has always been Susie’s outlet. She comes from a high-achieving family (her father Ron Amy, OBE, is a former chairman of the National Association of Pension Funds, and her sister, Lynn, is a respected geneticist) but Susie says – to her parents’ credit – she was never made to feel anything other than being on a level playing field.

“School wasn’t a particularly fun time for me but I had a passion for acting. So Iwas really pleased that my sister’s kids got to watch me in the La Femme Musketeer mini series.

“That was so fun – four months filming in Croatia although most of what you see is my stunt double,” she smiles.

As for Oxford, Susie says she knows Bicester Village better than the city itself but can’t wait to explore, theatre and all. “I just love the theatre. I love the immediacy and the closeness of the cast. I love all of it.”

  • Kate O’Mara and Susie Amy appear in Agatha Christie's Murder On The Nile from Monday. Box office on 01865 305305 or oxfordplay house.com