Josie Lawrence has done everything from musical theatre to improv with the Comedy Store Players; Shakespeare to Fat Friends; Whose Line Is It Anyway? to QI with Stephen Fry; directing Berkoff's Women to recording The Lawrence Sweeney Mix with Jim Sweeney for BBC Radio 4.
In her latest stage role, she plays female spymaster Officer Hapgood, first returning to her Midlands roots at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and now at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.
Charles Hutchinson keeps track of her.
Is this your first appearance in a Tom Stoppard play, Josie?
"I've never done Stoppard but I've always been a fan of Arcadia, and Stoppard was something I wanted to do and I was looking for something to go back to Birmingham for.
"It was the director, Rachel Kavanaugh's idea to work with me, and so we met in London and she said, What would you most like to do?', and of course everything went out of my head. Rachel said she'd just read Hapgood, why not do that?"
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Hapgood has not been performed in Britain since its West End run in 1988. What appealed to you about the chance to play Officer Hapgood?
"It's a fantastic part for a start. There's a wit about her because of her intelligence and she breaks the rules all the time, so there's this naughty side of her.
"She gets to do everything; she fires guns, she's the head of an intelligence network; she bosses all these men, but also, on the more human side, she's a mother, a single mother, and you meet her 11-year-old son.
"So you don't get just the espionage side, but also the human story, and it is in many ways a love story - Stoppard calls it a love story."
What are the characteristics of Stoppard's writing in Hapgood?
"Some people think of Hapgood as being impenetrable, but though they go on about the complexity, I don't find it complex, and that's not just because I've been working on it for more than a month. If you try to analyse it too deeply, it can complicate it. You should go with the ride.
"His language and the timing of his dialogue is just a delight to perform."
Is Hapgood, with its combination of the worlds of physics and espionage, a daunting intellectual prospect to perform?
"He's a playwright where you really have to go into it and not panic about anything because there are moments where you could worry, but it's like cracking the Rubik cube; once you do that, it's an absolute joy.
"There are times when you have to listen to huge chunks of dialogue by another actor, but you can't switch off from the moment you're in at that time.
"Luckily it's a play that once it starts, it rollicks along. He's written it with great detail and he says it's a choreographed piece, like a dance, where you just have to enjoy it."
Not only is Hapgood a tale of double games and double-crossing, but you have double the fun from playing two roles.
"Yes, you get to see her twin sister. She comes on in the second half and that's all I can say"
Please say a little more
"It's great to play her as she's completely different. I play her pretty ditzy, a bit sluttish, and the exact opposite of Hapgood, and I get to wear ridiculously trashy Eighties' clothing."
How have you found the experience of working with Rachel Kavanaugh for the first time?
"She just seems to know me and she runs this very happy ship. There's no tension there, and I'm getting to the age Josie will be 49 in June where I don't want to do anything heavy': just do good work.
"It's all lads, apart from me, in this cast, so I've said to Rachel, if we do anything else, it's got to be all girls'! But then I've had to work for 22 years with all the Comedy Store lads: Lee Simpson, Paul Merton, Neil Mullarkey, Richard Vranch, Andy Smart, and Jim Sweeney before he stopped.
"Twenty-two years with those guys and the only trouble is, they're still going on about football all the time."
Hapgood, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until May 24. Box office: 0113 213 7700.
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