After being booted from EastEnders Leslie Grantham is now pursuing a very different career path. Reporter Craig Nelson went along to a press conference to find out more ...

This was one of Leslie Grantham's first press conferences since his demise as Dirty Den in EastEnders. It was also to be his last promoting the Jeffrey Archer play Beyond Reasonable Doubt, with which he is currently touring the UK.

Considering Grantham's recent press slating, the beleaguered TV star probably felt he had good reason to be nervous.

He endured a mauling in the red tops but many would say his rough ride was largely of his own making.

Despite this, Grantham's PR people gave us a list of subjects we were banned from questioning him about, or the interview would be terminated.

There was to be no mention of his infamous internet embarrassment and no word of his prison term for murder in his youth the very things people wanted to hear about. That leaves the play then...yawn!

The latter was probably the most relevant to his part in Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Grantham is playing the part of Sir David Metcalf QC, the lead character in the play who is charged with murdering his terminally ill wife, Lady Metcalf played by Alexandra Bastedo.

Whether or not his prior conviction may have helped Grantham prepare for the role, we will never know, but what he did say was still telling.

To begin with, what do you think of the author Grantham?

"When you're offered a play you straight away want to see the script, and I'm sure Sir Jeffrey won't mind me saying, he's had a lot of derogatory remarks about his writing.

"At first I'm weighing up what it might do for my career but then I read it and realised it was a very well constructed thing."

Are you actually telling us Archer can write?

"I think it might change people's perception of Archer's writing. I just think it's a bloody good drama."

All three leading characters, Grantham, Bastedo and Simon Ward who plays presiding judge Anthony Blair Booth QC agree it is a compelling courtroom drama with a sensitive sub-plot about euthanasia and a dramatic twist in the tale.

The play starts at the beginning of the courtroom battle, with Grantham representing himself before his long-time sparring partner.

The following acts do not run chronologically, instead the audience is shown flashbacks of events leading up to the death of Lady Metcalf.

Like a real jury, the audience is given the chance to make up its own mind whether or not Grantham is guilty.

While the premise may sound dark and slightly depressing, the cast promise plenty of humour, especially between Ward and Grantham.

Considering the lofty and weighty subject matter, can the man known as the ultimate Cockney geezer pull it off?

"The trouble is, you don't come into this business to do telly, you come in to do theatre. Here I am all these years later getting the chance to do stuff I should have been doing when I left drama school.

"I can play tough guys standing on my head so this is something different for me. It's a lot of hard work because I've got to be very, very posh and play totally against type.

"On top of that I have to slip into Welsh every now and again and quote reams from Dylan Thomas. It's not just me going out to play a QC and being posh. There are a lot of other things going on."

-Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Orchard Theatre, Home Gardens, Dartford, June 20-22, £11.50-£15.50, 01322 220000.