YORK actress Andrina Carroll is to join Nichola McAuliffe and Susie Blake in York Theatre Royal's premiere of Murder, Margaret And Me after Indira Joshi had to leave rehearsals for personal reasons.

Andrina will play The Spinster in Philip Meeks's comedy thriller from February 17 to March 4, her character narrating and leading the story while bearing a certain resemblance to the legendary sleuth, Miss Marple.

Andrina's past appearances in the Theatre Royal company include Mother in The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum, Forty Years On, Peter Pan, The Crucible, Brassed Off, Educating Rita and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Artistic director Damian Cruden said: "It's sad to lose Indira; she is very talented and had already brought much to the process. Consequently, it's a joy to welcome Andrina to the company. I've worked with her on many projects and know she will be great in this role."

Andrina said: "I'm thrilled to be back at the Theatre Royal working with Damian and a great company in a fantastic part at a theatre where I've done a lot of exciting work in the past."

York Press:

Nichola McAuliffe, left, Susie Blake and Indira Joshi on the frst day of rehearsals for Murder, Margaret And Me. Picture: Anthony Robling

Murder, Margaret And Me explores the relationship between "Queen of Crime" Agatha Christie and the acting legend known as "the funniest woman alive", Margaret Rutherford. In the early 1960s, these two national treasures were the creative force behind one of British cinema's most successful franchises but the Miss Marple films were almost never made. Christie did not want Rutherford to bring her fabled spinster to life and Rutherford was mortified at the prospect of sullying her reputation with something as sordid as murder.

Nevertheless, as Murder, Margaret And Me records, the pair form an unlikely friendship filled with afternoon tea and gossip. Meanwhile, Agatha turns detective herself, determined to unearth Rutherford's tragic and shocking secret from a troubled family past that blights her mental health.

Murder, Margaret And Me began life as a one-woman show, presented at Harrogate Theatre in June 2013, but it was always Meeks's intention to expand his play into a three-hander. York Theatre Royal has afforded him that chance at the invitation of Damian Cruden, who had co-directed Meeks's revenge comedy about an embittered, rambling pantomime dame, Twinkle Little Star, in the Theatre Royal Studio in April 2008. The role went to Kenneth Alan Taylor, the Berwick Kaler of Nottingham Playhouse, should you not recall.

Meeks, incidentally, can now be spotted each winter playing panto dame, most recently giving his Widow Twankey in Aladdin at Blackpool Grand Theatre. "When I was young, I loved the whole tradition of the dame," he told The Press in 2013. "Now, too often, you see the dame played by a scrubber from local radio and that's deeply depressing."

Tickets for Murder, Margaret And Me are on sale on 01904 623568 and at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk