KEITH Allen did not leap at the chance to play retired detective Inspector Rough in "one of the greatest thrillers of all time", Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight. Not initially, at least.

"The director, Anthony Banks, and the producers asked me to meet them to talk about it, and to be honest I didn't get it, when I read it, but then I'm extraordinarily bad at reading scripts," says the 63-year-old Welsh actor, comedian, singer, songwriter, musician, artist, author and television presenter.

"I just couldn't see it. I thought, 'this is a pretty old piece of writing; who'd want to watch it?'"

Nevertheless, this interview was being conducted by phone with Allen in his dressing room at the Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, minutes before a Thursday matinee of Gaslight, Allen now very much ensconced in the role of Inspector Rough in a tour that will arrive at the Grand Opera House, York, on Monday.

So, what's changed, Mr Allen? "I'd never even heard of Gaslight, but then you hear that writers like Patrick Marber said it was their favourite play. Then I read it again and I realised that it would work but only if you did it one way....and it really does work," he says.

Written in 1938 but set in Victorian times, Gaslight is an elegantly phrased psychological thriller in which Jack Manningham (played by Rupert Young) is out on the town each evening, leaving his wife Bella home alone. Bella (2013 Strictly Come Dancing winner and The Halcyon star Kara Tointon) can’t explain the disappearance of familiar objects, the mysterious footsteps overhead or the ghostly flickering of the living-room gaslight.

York Press:

Rough encounter: Keith Allen's Inspector Rough with Kara Tointon's Bella Manningham

Is she losing her mind? Does the terror exist in her imagination or are dark secrets living in her home? The surprise arrival of Allen's retired detective leads to a shocking discovery that will shake Bella's respectable Victorian marriage to its core.

Allen makes what might seem a somewhat surprising link when assessing the characteristics of Inspector Rough, but let him explain. "I see him more as a showman, a bit of a dandy, believe it or not, so I can bring out elements of what I've done over years as I'm kind of used to showing off!" he says.

"I think there are elements of Leonard Sachs and his gavel on The Good Old Days about Rough; that plummy theatricality. Patrick Hamilton wrote it as a theatrical performance: a real representation of the mental torment of Bella, but definitely a theatrical performance too," he says.

"Doing the play repeatedly now, you realise it's quite a modern play in what it deals with as a subject and how it deals with it in a modern way, when it's also clever that he's set it as a Victorian melodrama."

Allen reckons Gaslight is a suitably evocative title for Hamilton's psychological drama. "In terms of imagery, 'Gaslight' signals a lot," he says. "Hamilton has also overlain Freudian psychology on it, which didn't exist when he set the play, and at the time people would have been very shocked by it when theatre tended to be more genteel." So much so that the term "gaslighting" now defines the act of manipulating someone by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.

Allen is enjoying performing with Tointon and Young – "they're wonderful to work with" – and he has been delighted by the audience response on tour. "The reaction has been brilliant so far; they're loving the play," he says. "And what's interesting about Gaslight is that it's different from other thrillers in that everything is laid out before it actually happens."

Gaslight flickers at the Grand Opera House, York, from Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york