written by David Ward, arts correspondent

ACTOR Matt Addis arrived in Keswick at 4.30pm on a dark Sunday morning a few weeks ago to begin rehearsals for The Snow Queen and to climb a few more fells: “I watched the stars and just felt very warmly at home,” he said. “This is one of those places that becomes very special in your heart.

“I first came to Theatre by the Lake for the 2011 summer season and remember walking down to the theatre for the first time - that view towards the Jaws of Borrowdale and the Scafell massif is incredible.”

Matt has been back, not for another summer, but for two productions in the Studio, both of which also toured to towns and villages in Cumbria, and for The Railway Children at Christmas 2012. In The Snow Queen, which runs from November 28 to January 16, he plays a stern schoolmaster, an industrious troll, a narcoleptic snowdrop and a talking reindeer.

For that last role, he has been to meet Spruce, Anja, Prancer and Salka, the four reindeer at Walby Farm Park near Carlisle: “When you are playing a reindeer, it’s very useful to go and talk to one.”

Matt’s first stage appearance, at the age three in a nativity play at Park Street Methodist church in Blaenavon, south Wales, was not a triumph: he was a Wise Man but refused to say his lines. His first professional acting job followed 27 years later when, in 2007, he graduated from drama school and walked straight into a production of the hit farce Boeing-Boeing in the West End.

In between, he acted - and spoke - in many plays at school, with Gwent Young People’s Theatre, with the National Youth Theatre, at the Minack theatre in Cornwall and at Manchester University, where he studied English and French (and acted with Benedict Cumberbatch).

He trained for the theatre only after taking temporary jobs in the US, Canada and Australia for five years to pay off his student loan: “When I had finished my training, I gave myself ten years,” he said. “If, after that, I wasn’t earning a living wage, I would do something else. Last year I earned more that I ever did in grown-up jobs. I’ve had a real variety of work and it’s been lovely.”

One major part came his way by accident. When War Horse was on tour in Cardiff, Matt rang a friend who was working on the show to get tickets for his parents and learned that they were looking for someone to take over the lead role of Captain Nicholls: “A week later, I was in Bradford getting on Joey the horse for the first time to ride into battle. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve done on stage.”

He continued to ride Joey for nine months as War Horse cantered through the UK and South Africa.

Earlier in his career, Matt spent six months with the BBC drama repertory company and was heard in many radio plays, including The Lady in the Van with Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith. That led to lots of work recording audio books, which has developed into a nice little earner between stage jobs. Matt has many voices, including that of Inspector Appleby in unabridged recordings of more than 30 detective stories by Michael Innes, one of them lasting more than 17 hours.

He has now set up his own audio production company to record the books he wants to record, including Welsh historical thrillers and The Letter for the King by Dutch writer Tonke Dragt, a children’s book (“a tale of long ago, when knights still roamed the land”) that has been a worldwide bestseller.

Matt has other strings to his very organised bow. If you are awake very early on a Sunday morning, you may hear him reading prose and verse on Something Understood on Radio 4. If you miss that, you may catch him reading Christmas poems and prose at three tea-time sessions at Lake District hotels.

And if you ask him really nicely, he might clean your windows. For a fat fee. He once set up a window cleaning business to keep himself and other actors in cash between acting jobs: “My strategy was that we could charge an awful lot of money if there was no one better than us. I was the finest window cleaner in north London.”

The Snow Queen runs at Theatre by the Lake from November 28 to January 16.

Box office 017687-74411.