Catherine blossoms anew on the York stage in The Cherry Orchard

"Last time I played Dunyasha, a maid who has thoughts above her station and like every woman in the play she falls in love with the wrong person. There's a lot of unrequited love going on," says Catherine, a London girl who was performing for the Northampton Rep at the time.

"I originally went to White Lodge, the baby part of the Royal Ballet School, and I had no intention of talking on stage as you don't have to talk in ballet, but then I broke a big bone skiing when the rules of the college were not to go skiing, but my father said we should go skiing anyway. After that injury I found I loved speaking on stage."

Catherine, who will lead the company in Helen Wilson's Chekhov production from tonight until Sunday, was "cripplingly shy as a child". "I would hide under beds at parties and read lots of books, but then on stage I found I could be someone else. I found that extraordinary and I still do. In fact the worse thing about being on stage is the curtain call," she says.

"Judi Dench's advice to me was to invent a 'curtain call person' who loves curtain calls and I still do that. That was my only note from Judi when I asked her for any notes when I was at the National with Ralph Richardson in Eduardo Filippo's Inner Voices. That was in the 1980s and it was Ralph's last role."

Catherine went on to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company and twice played a daughter to Glenda Jackson, the second time at the Almeida Theatre in a significant production for them both. Glenda Jackson left the stage to pursue her political career as a Labour MP; Catherine left to concentrate on motherhood.

"That was 24 years ago and I didn't return to the stage until I did Timon Of Athens for York Shakespeare Company. Motherhood took over; single parenting took over. I decided that to be a half-decent mother, I couldn't act anymore, and it's a decision I'll never regret because I have the most amazing daughter, Rose," says Catherine, who moved up to York a year ago.

Why York, Catherine? "I've never lived anywhere but London all my life, but Rose was at university in York, studying music, first a BA, then an MA and she's about to do a PhD. I thought 'this is rather a nice place'.

"We hardly see each other! She shares a place with her boyfriend across town. I didn't know anywhere else; I just thought, 'York, that's all right'."

More than all right, as it turns out. By day, Catherine works at L'Occitane, the French skincare shop in Low Petergate; by night, the stage has reclaimed her.

"I saw an advert for the auditions for Ruby Clarke's production of Timon Of Athens and went along thinking 'maybe they will give me a little part', but she gave me Apemantus, traditionally a very male part: harsh and judgemental, just not like me at all," she says. "I didn't know if I could still learn a lot of lines, let alone act, but I had a ball with it. I adored the role."

Director Helen Wilson did watch that production but had cast Catherine already to be her Madame Ranyevskaya in The Cherry Orchard. "It's a tremendous vehicle for a mature actress," says Helen. "I was looking for someone who could command the stage, someone who had authority, and that was Catherine.

"Madame Ranyevskaya is a grande dame of the stage; she's not an actress but she may as well be because she loves attention. She's the engine that drives the play and it's very rare to find a woman's part that does that."

Catherine Hall in rehearsal for The Cherry Orchard

Catherine demurs slightly from Helen's opinion. "The more I study her, the more I think Madame Ranyevskaya's not a grande dame, but vulnerable, and she's played life so wrong. If she can make a mistake, she will," she says.

"It's absolutely terrifying but exciting to be playing her. I've always wanted to play but but never thought I'd get the chance, but she's tricky, so we'll see how it goes! I love her, but god she's irritating.

"Chekhov does a fine balance between the absurd, the tragic and the truthful, and he does it with a light touch. That's our challenge: the lightness of touch."

York Settlement Community Players' production of The Cherry Orchard runs at Friargate Theatre, York, from tonight until Sunday. Evening performances start at 7.30pm on the first three days; matinees at 2.30pm on the last two. Box office: 01904 613000 or online at ridinglights.org