“I’LL bring my three boots,” said Izabella Urbanowicz as she prepared to come to Keswick to appear in two plays at Theatre by the Lake this summer, writes DAVID WARD.

An actress with three legs?

Izabella corrected herself: she meant three pairs of boots. This indicated both that she had the normal number of legs and that she had prepared well for an extended stay in Cumbria - she will be surrounded by fells till early November, appearing in both After the Dance by Terence Rattigan and the world première of a new adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie by Howard Brenton.

Izabella grew up in west London and directed her four brothers and one sister in many playtime productions at home as well joining the famous Questors amateur theatre in Ealing; she moved from youth groups to appear in 12 productions with the main company and then on to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

She has since had a varied career, appearing recently in a production of Hamlet in London in which the title role was divided between three actors, one male, two female. “I came on and basically killed everyone in the second half,” she said.

The Stage reviewer was impressed: “Izabella Urbanowicz’s wild-eyed final Hamlet is hypnotic, perhaps the most unforgettable of the evening.”

She is looking forward to a long spell in Keswick for both the work and the walking. “My big hobby is hiking and I have walked a lot on Dartmoor. I’ve now got all the OS maps for the Lake District - I’ve never been there before but I’ve been doing my research.”

If she needs any walking tips, she can rely on fellow actor Richard Keightley (to whom she is married in the play), who appeared in three very different productions at Theatre by the Lake in the summer of 2015. “We carried on walking and swimming in the lake until the very last day of that season,” he said. “I’ll definitely be doing that again.

“The schedule this year means that we will not be performing so solidly through the week. We are in two plays each rather than three - I’m also in As You Like it - so we will have occasional days off and be able to take even more advantage of what Keswick has to offer.”

In After the Dance, Izabella and Richard play Joan and David Scott-Fowler, two former bright young things who had lots of fun in the 1920s but are older, if not much wiser, in the late 1930s. Another character tells them: “It’s awful how two people can misunderstand each other as much as you.”

The play was first seen in London in 1939 and ran for barely two months, perhaps because audiences could not face its brittle, sad story as war loomed. It’s a play, now much admired as interest in Rattigan’s work grows, in which much is revealed in what is left unsaid, which gives the cast an interesting challenge.

“Joan has certain feelings that she cannot admit, cannot say out loud,” said Izabella. “She spends a lot of time denying what is going on to protect herself. I love that sense of ‘I’m saying this but feeling the opposite.’ It is quite remarkable how much you understand of what they don’t say. I don’t know how Rattigan does it but you just know.”

The director, Philip Wilson, calls After the Dance an “iceberg play” because so much is under the surface. “We unpacked it in rehearsals so that everyone knew what the characters were feeling and we experimented with how much of that should be let out,” said Richard.

“David never quite takes his opportunities; he’s the sort of person who never comes up with right kind of thing to say at the right time. He has slightly lost his way, misjudging what is the best way out of a situation.”

David and Joan are tragic figures, something that can be troubling for actors to express in repeated performances. But Izabella enjoyed every minute of the rehearsal process in London, which was coming to end as we spoke and as the company was preparing to move up to Keswick.

“Weirdly I haven’t really had to learn Joan. At the beginning of rehearsals, we sat round the table for a week talking about everything and that has made the lines just appear. We just knew what were saying and why we were saying it.

“My love for the part has been getting embarrassing. My alarm was supposed to go off at 7.30 but I would wake up at 5.30 just itching to get into the rehearsal room. If we weren’t needed till 11.30, I would go in at 10, walk around, listen to Joan’s music. It’s been lovely.”

Richard, meanwhile, was both pondering the fact that he plays an alcoholic who has just one and a half drinks in the course of the play and looking forward to his return to Cumbria. “I can’t wait,” he said. “I had a wonderful time in 2015 with both the shows and the atmosphere - and being paid to spend time in the country.”

After the Dance continues its Theatre by the Lake run from July 12 until November; As You Like It opens on July 7.

Meanwhile, opening on June 15, as part of the summer season line up in the theatre's Main House will be the regional premiere of the celebrated and critically acclaimed Handbagged by Moira Buffini, a wickedly funny play that speculates on that most provocative of questions: What did Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher – two of the world’s most powerful women - talk about behind closed palace doors?

Box office 017687-74411.