Playing Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet - Chichester

“I absolutely loved The Stepmother,” she says. “It was a really great show, and it's one of those shows where we have still got the WhatsApp group going. We have stayed really, really close.”

Now comes a completely different challenge – albeit a role she has touched before.

“Years and years and years ago when Rory Kinnear was doing his Hamlet I did the National Youth Theatre production of the play Prince of Denmark by Mike Lesslie.”

The piece served as a prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet: “I played Ophelia in that so I suppose I've had Ophelia on the brain for a long time and I'm just really glad that I am now getting the chance to do it before I age up to play Gertrude! But actually Ophelia is really, really hard. You don't actually see that much of her and you don't actually see Hamlet’s and Ophelia’s relationship on the stage. Giles and Justin (Audibert, CFT artistic director, who is directing the production) and I have done lots of work using the text to try to work out what we think their relationship might be. I think it was great to begin with but obviously it doesn't end so well.

“I think Ophelia is a victim of the world, and it is a very, very misogynistic world. She's very good at being in this world at the beginning. She knows her place and she knows what to do and she knows how to be a young woman in this world. But I think what drives her to madness is not really what you would consider a psychotic episode. It is that she can no longer fit. She becomes a victim of this world.

“I think nowadays you can start thinking why does she obey her father, why does she do what she is told. You're trying to make sense of that, and there is that element that she believes her father that Hamlet has lied and doesn't love her as much as he says. I think she is obedient because she thinks being obedient is going to work.”

As for all the Ophelias that have gone before: “I'm very aware of them and of the brilliant choices that have been made but I think you have to put them out of your mind and to make them your own. I was a bit worried about that before but I think it's really just testament to how brilliant Shakespeare's writing is.

“Actually when I had my audition I dug out my old Hamlet which was a GCSE text and I found all the notes in there! I think I realised that I wanted to play Ophelia and it's great because this feels like it is the right time. I can bring what I've got to the role.”

And it is great that it is in the Minerva: “I'm really excited about that. Very often Shakespeare is done on the big stages because you feel that Shakespeare is epic. However there is a real intimacy to Hamlet, and in this version we're really trying to make it feel like a political thriller.”