AN actress who was almost killed when she was stabbed on stage in a knife scene that went wrong is to return to the Scottish theatre where the accident happened 37 years ago.

Colette O'Neil was about to deliver her last line when her co-star's knife slipped and the blade was plunged into her stomach.

However, with true theatrical mettle, Colette gasped her final poignant line: ''You can't kill me, I'm already dead,'' before collapsing on the stage in a pool of blood.

Now she is to return to Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre where she nearly lost her life at the age of 28. She will be appearing in Michael Tremblay's Solemn Mass for A Full Moon in Summer.

Colette said yesterday: ''The stabbing is something I will never forget, although I'm not sure whether it actually made any difference on my career. I don't know if it helped or hindered me.''

Since the accident, the 64-year-old actress has gone on to appear in Z Cars, the Morecambe and Wise Show, Hamish Macbeth, and Peak Practice.

Colette, who was born in Glasgow and now divides her time between London and the north-east of Scotland, has also appeared in numerous stage productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The accident happened when Colette was about to deliver her last line on the second night of the Traverse Theatre's existence, during a performance of Jean Paul Sartre's play about three people in Hell, ''Huis Clos''. Fellow actress Rosamund Dickson was cued to take a lunge at Colette with a stage knife, then let it slip underneath the cuff of her sleeve as she did it. But the knife became entangled in her evening gown costume and, in the struggle to free it, the blade was accidentally pushed into her stomach.

It missed Colette's vital organs by inches, but she managed to deliver her line and take a bow before collapsing downstairs in her dressing room.

She said: ''I thought I had been punched in the stomach. But Rosamund looked at me in horror and we both realised something was wrong. It was cold in the theatre and I think it was the cold that caused the slip.''

Theatre staff put out a call for a doctor and two in the audience rushed to treat Colette and her colleague, who fainted at the sight of all the blood.

Colette, who plays Rose in the new show, said: ''When the knife went into me we both knew something was wrong and both gazed at each other in horror. But it happened so quickly I didn't feel a thing."

She was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for emergency surgery and took three weeks to recover in hospital, missing out on the rest of the play's run.

A spokesman at the Traverse said: ''We are very grateful to Colette because if she had died the theatre would not have survived either. It's a real treat and an honour to have her back.''