Amanda's cutting it with the best.

Byline: By Jane Hall

For a while the tabloid obsession with Amanda Holden's love life overshadowed her acting career. But while her seven-year marriage to Les Dennis may have ended last year, she is going from strength to strength on the work front.

Amanda, 32, is set to appear on our TV screens again in the second series of the BBC's successful drama about hairdressers at war, Cutting It, she has been signed up to star alongside Jamie Theakston in a new comedy called Eternal Rectangle, about a couple in the throes of separation, and she is about to make her West End stage debut in Thoroughly Modern Millie, when it transfers from Broadway.

Add to this that she is almost certain to become a household name across the Atlantic now the sitcom which brought her to public attention in the UK, Kiss Me Kate, is showing in major cities, and Amanda would seem to have no fears on the career front - or any other for that matter.

Indeed, she seems to have a zest for life and appears to be facing the future with renewed confidence. "I have a good sense of who I am, I feel very strong and have lots of support," she says with a smile.

"But I'll feel a lot happier when I have a semblance of a private life and I'm left alone," she adds with a tinge of frustration.

Amanda and Les met at a party in Bournemouth 10 years ago before she made her name as an actress. Despite his initial fears about the 17-year age gap - he is 49 - they married in 1995. But the couple went through a temporary separation in 2001 following Amanda's high profile affair with Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrissey.

Les and Amanda reunited several weeks later but the couple could never escape the shadow of the affair.

Since splitting from Les in December, Amanda could hardly be accused of melting into the background. She has appeared at high-profile celebrity bashes and at the Tio Pepe Carlton London Restaurant Awards she arrived in a Catherine Walker frock featuring a head to toe see-through panel.

Amanda has hit the upper reaches of the annual 10 sexiest women survey for men's magazine FHM; she did not even make the top 100 in 2002.

One of the people she is most often seen out and about with is her Cutting It co-star, Sarah Parish. Sarah split with actor Hugo Speer last year.

"Sarah and I have fun every day," Amanda says. "I think we're very similar to each other.

"She gets me into trouble all the time, particularly on set when she grasses me up and blames me for talking and laughing.

"We've also had some great nights out and a couple of fantastic holidays together. The best holiday has to be when we spent time together with some friends in Tuscany a couple of years ago," adds Amanda, who recently spent a week in Barbados with Sarah.

The Cutting It cast were notorious for their fun nights out on the town in Manchester - where the drama is filmed.

But this time the female members of the cast apparently opted for girlie nights in instead.

The Hampshire-born actress says: "We're all very energetic, like a laugh and are always making up singing and dancing routines on set. In fact, we were saying the other day that if one of us was quiet and didn't want to join in, that person would feel really left out - it would be awful for them.

"But luckily, we all pretty much have the same kind of personalities.

"Our Sex and the City girls' nights in were great, we all wore really sexy underwear," Amanda says with a mischievous glint.

"Angela (Griffin) would go off to Selfridges to buy some nice dips and I would make the Cosmopolitans, and then we all sat in our best lingerie watching the show before we compared underwear and cellulite," she laughs.

It's the sort of fighting talk her character in Cutting it, Mia Bevan, would be proud to hear. Mia may have no husband after he walked out on her for rival salon owner Allie Henshall (played by Sarah Parish) and no friends in the drama, but like Amanda, she is out to prove you can't keep a good woman down as she sets her sights on winning the `war of love.'

"The last series was about two rival salon owners but this time I think it's about love, emotion, friendship and a web of relationships," explains Amanda.

"Mia's up to mischief again. She starts off humble and quiet, but rapidly gains her strength, plotting, planning and lying in an attempt to get her husband back."

Dubbed the manipulative hairdresser from hell in the first series, Mia's under-hand behaviour was a facade to cover her own emotional turmoil. "The reaction to my character turned out to be nicer than I thought.

"People felt so sorry for her in the end, so I enjoyed playing someone who was on the surface a real cow, but underneath was lonely, unhappy and just plain desperate."

Joining the cast for the new series is glamorous Cherie Lunghi as Zinnia Raggitt, Mia's mother.

"She's a pain in the neck and an embarrassment," says Amanda. "Mia doesn't want to be seen dead with her because she's an ex-porn star from LA.

"So we've got all that tension with a bit of comedy thrown in, which is great."