IT'S fair to say that life on River City has been far from dull for actress Carmen Pieraccini.

First, her on screen alter ego Kelly-Marie Adams married a footballer and followed him to the millionaires' playground of Monaco.

Then she returned to Shieldinch, only to beat another hasty exit to Peru when her relationship with priest Father Michael caused uproar.

But now Carmen, 34, is facing her toughest role to date, acting out a scenario that is every parent's worst nightmare: their child being kidnapped.

Recent weeks have seen a dramatic and powerful storyline unfold in the BBC Scotland soap.

With son Callum snatched from the pre-school fundraising fair, a frantic Kelly-Marie is at her wits' end. Last night's episode saw a sinister package arrive in the post from the kidnappers, containing a lock of the youngster's hair.

The heartache continues next Tuesday when Kelly-Marie fails to heed police advice and takes matters into her own hands.

An abandoned flat is found to contain a phial of drugs, hair clippers and blood-stained clothes, seeing events gallop towards an explosive climax.

When Carmen first heard about the harrowing scenes ahead she admitted to feeling conflicted.

"I was nervous and thought: 'Oh, that's heavy'," she said. "But at the same time, as an actress, I felt excited.

"It's daunting, but a meaty storyline. All these emotions were going through my head.

"Getting a storyline so different from anything my character has done before has been great," she added. "Kelly-Marie has always been the 'tart with a heart', so it was nice to have that new challenge."

The fast-paced nature in which the show is filmed, said Carmen, made immersing herself a dark place more tricky than she had imagined.

"That Daniel Day Lewis kind of method acting simply isn't possible," she said.

"Not being a mother myself I didn't have that reference point, but I know it would the most horrendous thing in the world.

"I tried asking friends with children how they would react, but they all said: 'You can't ask that'. They didn't even want to think about it.

"So, what I did was try to imagine what I would do if a close family member of my own went missing."

She and co-star Frank Gallagher, who plays resident gangster and Cal's grandfather Lenny Murdoch, were able to bounce off each as they filmed the scenes.

"Frank is great to work with. He's so approachable and a brilliant actor," she said. "It was an ambitious thing for the producers to carry such a heavy storyline over three weeks.

"He was loving running around with a gun and I was loving being totally dramatic. It sometimes felt like we were in a film rather than a soap."

Born in Paisley, Carmen trained at the RSAMD in Glasgow and first joined River City in 2003.

Her TV roles have included Taggart, sitcom Dear Green Place and network children's drama G-Force.

She had a three year break from River City, before returning in 2011, during which she acted in the plays Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us and The House of Bernarda Alba, with the National Theatre of Scotland.

"I love theatre and would like to do more of it," she said. "I like that it's live and can feed off the audience."

Her own life away from work, she insisted, is the polar opposite to Kelly-Marie.

Not least her wardrobe favourite of a red nose, 1950s glasses, hair in bunches and a clown costume which she wears when entertaining sick children in hospitals and hospices across Scotland as Dr Squeegie the Weegie, on behalf of the Hearts & Minds charity.

Carmen is reputed to be a dab hand with a ukelele too. Nope, don't adjust your reading glasses. That isn't a misprint.

"My two sisters, a couple of friends and I have done a few gigs as the 'Ukeladies'," she laughed. "We're organising a wee cabaret night at the end of July.

"Cooking is something else I love," she added. "I've just moved house and the new place has a wee internal kitchen, so I'm looking forward to using that."

While she may not yet be a mother herself – "maybe in a few years," she joked – Carmen has a real soft spot for the young actor who stars as Cal.

"Robbie, who plays my son is so cute, he's a wee darling," she said. "He's had a good reaction from viewers too. People stop me in the street and say: 'Aww, your wee boy is lovely.' He does an amazing job for just being five.

"The day I saw him coming out of make-up and his hair was all cut [for the kidnap scene], looking bloodied and dirty, I almost burst out greeting. He looked so helpless.

"Filming the scene when the hair arrives was harrowing," she added. "She [Kelly-Marie] goes through a right mad time of it.

"It's not a happy storyline, but it will be gripping for the audience. I'm expecting people to stop me in the street and say: 'You've got to find that boy!'".

l River City, BBC1, Tuesday July 23, 8pm.

Kidnap storyline is a Shieldinch shocker