My secret play.

Marlene - why not?? It's a great picture.

I'm doing a little job at the moment to keep my instrument tuned; my instrument? My body.

All the things I have to use as an actor: my physique, voice, technique and – learning lines. How much am I getting for it? Not much, it has to be said, and I'm only doing it once which seems a tall order when there are so many lines.

The reason for this is that I like to do a bit of theatre every year which means I have to rehearse, learn lines and figure the play out – that is the most important thing – and as I was out of the picture waiting for my eye surgery I wasn't available for any casting. I didn't have many lines to learn for my short film but I do for this.

Now why am I being so coy about telling you what the play is? Because we are doing it without permission.

Because it is being done in a small private theatre and only for one performance I don't think we would have got it. But you know the most important part of mounting a production is the rehearsal period.

When an actor embarks upon a play in the theatre they know more about the play, just before the curtain goes up on opening night, than anybody and that, I'm afraid, usually includes the writer. The actor cannot do without the writer – unless he's written the play himself – but can without the director; just about.

It's a collaborative process; I remember I was doing a play with a director friend of mine (who reads this, I think) saying to a writer 'you didn't know you'd written that, did you?'

And the writer said, no.

The writer makes the skeleton, the director puts on the skin and the actors bring the thing to life.

Writers will get on to me but they really should be flattered. If they write from the 'heart' they will be doing things unconsciously from their inner self and a good director/actor will find that and bring it all to life.

If a writer just writes in beats and wants things done the way they wrote it, things may not be at their best – if only they rehearsed more in movies. That's why the best films are by directors who rehearse properly – Sydney Lumet, Elia Kazan, Martin Scorsese etc.

I was listening to an interview recently with a renowned writer – Sally Wainwright – who wrote the two series for BBC, Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, and she was asked by the interviewer if she worked liked the Americans splitting her scripts into 'beats.'

'I've never heard of that' she said.

She has written at least 10 series for TV and quite a few TV Plays and films, and don't forget they don't have writing 'teams' over here with show runners etc – she's probably never heard of those either.

The point is she writes from the heart!

There are three people in the play I am doing. We never meet each other on the stage so I am being directed by one of the other actors and I am directing him. The other one was being directed by that actor, but he is away for July, so I am directing the other one too and it is a pleasure.

The place we are doing it and what it is?

It is a play and we are due to do it in a private theatre in – everybody invited which will mount to about 60 – 70 in the audience. I have 19 straight pages to learn – one speech and I have learned 5; but at least I've made a start.

And I can't tell you the title -