KARA Tointon will venture into dark new terrain when she stars in Patrick Hamilton's psychological thriller Gaslight, on tour at the Grand Opera House in York next month.

"It's just a fantastic piece," enthuses the 33-year-old London actress, who made her name playing Dawn Swann in EastEnders, won the 2010 series of BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing and is now starring in ITV's wartime drama The Halcyon.

"I'd never seen Gaslight but once I'd read the first few pages, I was hooked, I was gripped. For a woman's role, it's a really deeply texturally written piece, which is rare."

Leading lady Kara will play Bella Manningham in Hamilton's mystery thriller, written in 1938 but set in Victorian times, wherein Bella's psychologically abusive husband slowly manipulates her into believing she is going insane.

York Press:

Kara Tointon visits Kirkgate, York Castle Museum’s Victorian street, to soak up the atmosphere for her Grand Opera House run in Gaslight. Picture: David Harrison

While husband Jack (played by Rupert Young) is out on the town each evening, Bella is home alone, unable to explain the disappearance of familiar objects, the mysterious footsteps overhead or the ghostly flickering of living room gaslight. Is she losing her mind? Does the terror exist in her imagination or are dark secrets living in her home?

The surprise arrival of retired Detective Rough (Keith Allen) leads to a shocking discovery that will shake her respectable Victorian marriage to its core.

"I just love Bella as she's so well written by Patrick Hamilton, which makes it a gift of a role," says Kara, who decided not to watch Ingrid Bergman's Oscar-winning screen performance in George Cukor's 1944 film version in the lead-up to rehearsals in Belsize Park.

"It's nice to come to something with fresh eyes, so I'm not going to see the film until I know what we're doing with our production, but what's important in the play is that Bella feels trapped in her little home prison. In our setting Bella is going to feel very boxed on, very claustrophobic."

York Press:

Rupert Young, Kara Tointon and Keith Allen in Gaslight

Ever diverse in her TV and stage parts, Kara appeared in the ITV costume drama Mr Selfridge, playing the title character’s daughter when starring alongside sister Hannah, and last December she sang the role of Maria in the ITV production of The Sound Of Music Live!.

On the West End stage she has played Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and starred in revivals of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedies Absent Friends in 2012 and Relatively Speaking in 2013.

"That was the last theatre piece that I did, playing Evelyn, the woman who just sits in the chair saying nothing, but in fact it was the most difficult part I've played," says Kara.

Eliza and Maria provided challenges too. "Roles like Eliza and Maria are so iconic, perhaps too iconic in a way, which is dangerous, especially as I love Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, so that's why it's good to be doing Gaslight, something new to me," says Kara.

York Press:

Kara Tointon's first publicity picture for Gaslight

Nevertheless, playing Eliza Doolittle at the Garrick Theatre in 2011 was a memorable experience. "I was working with Rupert Everett, who played Henry Higgins, and Diana Rigg, as his mother, Mrs Higgins, so it was really special. They've both been really supportive, seeing the plays I've done since then, and they were incredible mentors for me as Eliza was my first big stage and everyone knows that play!" she says.

Bella Manningham, by comparison, is not such a familiar character, which gives Kara a freer hand in interpreting the role. "I see Bella as quite a strong-willed woman, which makes her mental turmoil ultimately more disturbing because she's pulling against the mental manipulation her husband is inflicting on her," says Kara.

"You want the audience to start out feeling she's in an ideal situation with a gorgeous husband, and you want to sustain the surprise of where everything is actually going for as long as possible."

York Press:

Kara Tointon in the Grand Opera House foyer bar with the Gaslight poster. Picture: David Harrison

This interview took place as the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing was unfolding, bringing back memories of Kara's triumph. "You have to work your body so physically, with different parts of your body aching each week, working muscles that you didn't know existed!" she recalls.

"I haven't danced since the Strictly tour, which is a shame, but doing Strictly you get almost a Rolls Royce of a dance experience with your fantastic partner and your wonderful costumes, and to do your own thing after that just isn't the same. I love to go to the gym but now it's as and when I want to go."

Making the Sun's front page yesterday with a Happy New Rear picture teaser of a Page Three story about her bath scene in the opening episode of The Halcyon signals a new wave of exposure for Kara in ITV's "Downton Abbey for 2017". She is playing "sultry singer Betsey Day in steamy new drama The Halcyon", in Sun-speak for the Sunday night eight-part wartime drama set in a plush London hotel in 1940 under the shadow of the Blitz.

"Betsey Day is the hotel's jazz band singer from a tough background, and it's going to be a fast, furious, sex and drugs and rock'n'roll jazz-period drama!" she tantalises.

Gaslight will play the Grand Opera House, York, from January 30 to February 4. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york