IF you thought they were just Keeping Up Appearances, you'd be wrong.

For it turns out, despite the fact they never shared a scene together throughout the six series of the ultimate BBC snob-com, Judy Cornwell and David Griffin are actually great friends.

And so well do they get on they are appearing together in the Blackpool Grand's production of Noel Coward comedy classic Blithe Spirit.

As scatty Daisy and put-upon Emmet, Judy and David's characters were satellites that revolved around Keeping Up Appearances' hideous central personality Hyacinth Bucket.

But in Blithe Spirit it's David, 60, who will be taking the role of the uppity central character who needs to be taken down a peg or two.

The play revolves around novelist Charles Condomine, played by David, who hopes to expose a medium, played by Judy, as a fake. Following a seance, however, Charles finds himself haunted by his deceased wife Elvira, a situation which causes much merriment for the audience and a great deal of panic for Charles.

"My character Charles is very posh and is a bit in love with the sound of his own voice," David explained, as he cycled to rehearsals along Blackpool's sea front.

"Noel Coward has written some wonderful, acidic lines for him. It's very different to Keeping Up Appearances, of course.

"That was just short little vignettes set up with a punchline. This is very stylised, but it's great fun to do."

Both Sussex-born, David and Judy have become great friends since they co-starred in the BBC show, which was broadcast in the early '90s.

One thing they don't agree on, though, is their method of transport to and from rehearsals.

"He's not cycling again, is he?" asked an exasperated Judy, when told of David's open-air jaunt to the theatre.

"He's always going belting along the sea front on his bike. I get a taxi."

You certainly can't imagine Daisy, Judy's Keeping Up Appearances character, paying to get a taxi anywhere, no matter how much her sister Hyacinth tried to force such extravagances on her "common-as-muck" relatives.

Indeed, Hyacinth's obsessive snobbery and her determination to keep separate her family and friends was the reason Judy and David's characters never met.

Off-set, though, Judy and her husband have often met David socially, although this is their first theatre together.

"David's a great chum of mine," said Judy, who plays the medium, Madame Arcati. "He tries to prove my character is a fake, but although she's a bit dotty, she's actually quite good at what she does."

Blithe Spirit runs at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool until tomorrow. For tickets, call 01253 290190.