BLACKPOOL'S famous "actors' church" - St Stephen's on the Cliffs - is staging a new act for the millennium.

This Sunday (October 3), the North Shore church, favoured by holiday-season show stars over many decades, launches a £200,000 appeal to complete a building started 74 years ago.

With a completion target of 2002 - the church's 75th anniversary - the building and restoration programme should equip the church for the new millennium, said parish priest, the Rev Peter Walsh.

Showbusiness legends like Gracie Fields, Sir Noel Coward, George Formby, Mae West, Thora Hird and Sir Harry Secombe are among the stars who have signed the visitors' book and some names are even inscribed in marble on the altar of the Actors' Chapel, including Tessie O'Shea, who left a statue.

Explained Mr Walsh: "The church of St Stephen was never completed. The temporary west wall erected in 1927 is now beginning to show its age and its temporary nature. Time has also taken its toll on the 1970s porch, which met a vital need nearly 30 years ago but is also now in need of urgent repair. "To meet the challenge of mission and worship in the new milennium, the Church Council has embarked on a wonderful project to restore the stonework and rebuild the west end, to ensure that the church will be a house of prayer into the next millennium."

Mr Walsh, only the fourth St Stephen's vicar since 1909, said they had already raised around £15,000 even before the official launch, winning support from the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Blackburn, local politicians and comedian Syd Little.

"This is an event of diocesan and national significance," he went on.

"Everyone has heard of St Stephen on the Cliffs; it is a great actors' church. This is part of our sense of mission and outreach and one of our key aims is that the building should be open all the time."

The first official fund-raising event will be a Gift Day on October 16, when parish members will be invited to give cash donations, and special Millennium events will take place throughout 2000 to help boost the coffers.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.