Ellie Leach on how winning Strictly changed her life and the 'very fun' challenge of playing Miss Scarlett in Cluedo 2

Ellie Leach may only be 23 but she has already been part of two national institutions in Coronation Street and Strictly Come Dancing and is now taking on a third of a rather different nature in the theatre world.

The much-loved murder mystery game Cluedo, which was invented in the 1940s by Birmingham factory worker Anthony E. Pratt, has been a staple of millions of family homes for generations as players attempt to work out which of the colourful cast of characters has committed a killing in addition to the weapon they used and the room it happened in.

The game has now an inspired a stage whodunnit called Cluedo 2 in which Leach has been given the role of femme fatale Miss Scarlett.

The announcement of Leach’s casting in her stage debut was only made a few weeks before the show’s run began after fellow Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan had to withdraw from the part for medical reasons.

The show is now midway through a huge nationwide tour and will be playing at the Leeds Playhouse next month as part of an extended run after previous stops in York, Hull and Sheffield during its initial five-month stint.

Leach says it has been really enjoyable for her and other cast members to create rounded characters based on very famous but almost literally two-dimensional playing card drawings.

“One of the most fun things about being an actor is the fact that you can really do your own take on who a character is,” she says.

"When people hear that you're doing a play from something that's based on a board game they think, ‘How can you do that?’ They literally come from playing cards.

"But what's amazing about that is they don't have a back story, so you can create them to whatever you want them to be, which, as a cast and with our director and the writers as well, we've been able to really create their own personal stories throughout the whole of the show.

"It's very fun to be able to take a character that is so iconic, but that doesn't really have a story, and kind of make it your own.”

Leach is used to a life in the spotlight, having joined Coronation Street at the age of just nine and played the role of Faye Windass for 12 years before departing the show last summer.

Just months later, she became the youngest winner of Strictly Come Dancing aged 22 alongside professional partner Vito Coppola and says her amazing experience on the competition has altered her outlook on life and work.

She reflects: “Strictly has changed my life. When I say that, I think that people are a little bit shocked as they think it is ‘just’ a dance competition, where it's completely not like that. It made me really, really learn a lot about myself and kind of change the way that I think about things.

"I think I genuinely do think that without Strictly I wouldn't have said yes to maybe even doing Cluedo. When I got the call it sounded amazing, but I would have been very nervous to step out of my comfort zone, whereas now I'm kind of forcing myself to do that.

"I feel like before I was kind of like a ‘no’ person, because I was scared of what's going to happen, whereas now I'm like, ‘Just say yes’, because you never know the opportunities that you might have and the experiences that you might get.”

She says the different experiences of Coronation Street and Strictly have both assisted in preparing for the challenges of live theatre.

“It's completely different to when I was on Corrie. But I think that I've kind of taken the acting skills that I learned there and married them with kind of performing skills and the live element of what Strictly was.

"I've recently realised that I like to step out of my comfort zone. Doing Strictly, I've done that a lot, and I think it really helped me realise what a live audience will be like. I love having that immediate reaction from an audience. Cluedo’s a murder-mystery so it's a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and gasps and there's laughter, and the audience are really responsive to everything that we're doing.”

She adds: “Acting for screen is very, very different for acting for theatre. With TV, you've got all the different shots and camera angles to get, and you can kind of go again if something goes wrong or if something doesn't look quite right you can change it. Theatre is live and anything can happen. By doing Strictly, it really helps me kind of realise what that involves.

"Strictly just really helped me with my confidence. From doing Corrie from being so young, and it just kind of being the only job that I'd had to then do something that's completely different and out of my comfort zone, I was so scared, but actually I realised ‘I'm really enjoying this’. It completely changed my mindset and I decided I was going to say yes to opportunities."

Set in the swinging 60s, Cluedo 2 also sees former Heartbeat actor Jason Durr in the role of Colonel Mustard, with other cast members bringing board game characters Mrs Peacock, Professor Plum, Reverend Green and Mrs White to life.

The show also boasts an impressive creative team – having been written by duo Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran who are known for the likes of Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart, and directed by Mark Bell, whose previous credits include The Play That Goes Wrong.

Leach says: “Every day we do a show, I learn so much from the cast. I'm very lucky to be able to work with some great people who know exactly what they're doing in this industry, and every day, I'm looking for new things to learn, and they're teaching me a lot.”

She says much like the board game, the show is designed to be family friendly with the script including plenty of jokes. “It's a great night out and a good bit of entertainment for everyone.”

Leach says despite being something of a “homebird” she is enjoying touring the country with the show, which is scheduled to run until the end of November. She says she is looking forward to the shows in Leeds.

“Being from the north, it's great. York was the first northern place that we did and the the audiences were great. Every different city or town that we go to, we get a different reaction and I always love a northern reaction.

“We've done over 100 shows, and yet there's still some things that get more of a reaction than others in different places."

Leach says that while she “cherished” her time on Coronation Street, she is excited to see where the next chapter of her career will go once the Cluedo run ends.

“I'm very much a kind of living the moment person. As I said throughout Strictly, I really didn't think too much into the future because I never want to set myself up for disappointment.

“I'm really open to things. After being at Corrie for 12 years, and then to move on to Strictly, which is completely different, and then to now move on to Cluedo, which is different again, I'm really enjoying just kind of spreading my wings and seeing what I like and I enjoy and where I kind of fit in. I'm kind of open to anything really.”

Cluedo 2 plays at Leeds, Playhouse Theatre 3-7 September. For tickets: cluedostageplay.com