Charlie Brooks moves on from EastEnders baddie role to play unsavoury shape-shifting character at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, produced by the National Theatre, will run at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre from May 9 to 20, 2023.

Charlie, who made her exit from EastEnders after dramatic scenes over Christmas saw Janine married and later widowed after a thrilling car chase, plays an unsavoury shapeshifting character called Ursula who seduces a father and terrifies his son.

The story begins when a man returns to his childhood home where he finds himself standing beside the pond of the old Sussex farmhouse where he used to play. He's transported to his 12th birthday when his remarkable friend Lettie claimed it wasn't a pond, but an ocean – a place where everything is possible. Plunged into a magical world, their survival depends on their ability to reckon with ancient forces that threaten to destroy everything around them.

Neil Galman’s book The Ocean at the End of the Lane has sold more than 12 million copies and won the Book of the Year at the National Book Awards in 2013.

This first major stage adaptation of his work blends magic with memory in a tour-de-force of storytelling that takes audiences on an epic journey to a childhood once forgotten and the darkness that lurks at the very edge of it.

Performances take place at 7.45pm with matinees on May 10, 11 and 19 at 2pm and May 13 and 20 at 3pm.

Tickets from £15; go to www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk