When: Tuesday to Saturday.

Where: Hull Truck, Ferensway, Hull.

Tickets: From £10 to £15.

To book: Call 01482323638.

Visit: www.hulltruck.co.uk

Roots: James Alekos Alexandrou was born in Islington, London, in 1985, to a Greek Cypriot father and an English mother. He has a twin sister, Antoinette

Big break: James took over the role of Martin Fowler in 1996. He was the second actor to play the part after Jon Peyton Price.

Potter: According to press reports, he turned down the chance to replace Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in the West End revival of Equus.

He's best known as EastEnders' unlucky-in-love Martin Fowler, but actor James Alexandrou tells Ian Midgley how he's not missing his Walford roots or the daily grind of soap land

Y ou don't expect Martin Fowler to suddenly start spouting Aristotle to settle an argument.

"Martin, what you going to do about Sonia?" screams soap matriarch Pauline, propping up the lounge bar in The Queen Vic.

"Leave it mum, it's not her fault," he'd spit back, sulkily.

"As Aristotle said: Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing."

At this point, Dot Cotton's drooping fag falls out of her astonished mouth and the cliffhanger drums kick in.

Doesn't really work, does it?

But talking to James Alexandrou, who played EastEnders' dopey Martin for 11 years, from 1996 to 2007, you quickly realise he's about as far from his on-screen character as Aristotle is from Phil Mitchell.

He's busy defending his generation against the jibe that they're all a bunch of lawless tearaways when he starts delving, unexpectedly, into Greek philosophy.

"Wasn't it Aristotle who said the youth all run around tearing the place up and causing trouble?" he muses.

"And that was 3,000 years ago. So nothing changes.

"You can't tell me that people who are granddads now didn't get into a few scrapes when they were youngsters. Nothing changes."

But a 26-year-old soap star discussing philosophy is a bit, well, unusual, isn't it?

Maybe it's his half-Greek roots coming to the fore.

"Maybe it is a bit unusual," he laughs. "But I like a bit of philosophy. I like Marcel Proust and Sartre, too.

"And I also like those two modern philosophers, Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais."

James has been preoccupied with youth gone wrong a lot recently.

Taking the lead role in Dennis Kelly's shocking, darkly comic drama DNA, which arrives at Hull Truck next week, he says he has had to do a lot of soul-searching about what he would do if faced with an extreme situation.

The play, which has been compared to a 21st century Lord Of The Flies, revolves around a group of "feral" youths who must decide what to do when they bully, and then accidentally kill, one of the weaker members of their pack.

But the story isn't a lament on the state of modern youth, says James. It's a play for everyone.

"I don't think it's just a play about 'yoof'," he says, with added emphasis on the "f".

"I think it's a play about everyone and what you would do if you were faced with an horrendous situation.

"Would you man up and admit it? Or would you try to cover it up and get away with it?

"It's about how far you would go to escape the consequences of what you've done."

Away from the mire of moral dilemmas, the actor who spent his life growing up on TV seems happy to be free of its constraints for the time being.

Although he doesn't rule out a return to the soap one day, he says he's relishing flexing different acting muscles away from the high-pressure factory of turning out four soap episodes a week.

"It's nice," he says. "You get to explore things more deeply, which you have to do to keep it interesting if you're doing a play in the theatre for five months.

"But I don't know what's next for me. If someone came along and offered me a million quid, I'd quite happily sit on a beach for the rest of my life!

"But at the moment, I'm just doing jobs that make me happy.

"It's a great life," adds the down-to-earth actor cheekily.

"I get paid to get on stage and pretend for an hour or two every night.

"And, if I'm good, I get a round of applause at the end of it."