WILLIAM Wordsworth used to wander lonely as a cloud in the Lake District; actor John Sackville once wandered in a hurricane with a few friends in Black Sail pass above Ennerdale in 1988, writes DAVID WARD.

The trip, in which he got rather closer to nature than he intended, turned out to be a useful preparation for playing the nature-loving poet In the world première of William Wordsworth by Nicholas Pierpan, which opens at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick next month.

John’s trip was in November but the sun was warm - until the weather changed. “Suddenly we were in a force ten gale,” said John. “One tent blew away and the other guys got in ours - four of us together. The beck burst its banks and it was freezing cold. At four in the morning, I rolled off my camping mat shaking with hypothermia.”

John’s friends carried him to Black Sail youth hostel, where he warmed up and lived to tell the tale. That experience followed what he now sees as a rather Wordsworthian childhood. “I grew up in Dorset in a ramshackle old house in the fields and spent a lot of time outside as a kid.”

Emma Pallant, who plays William’s devoted sister Dorothy, grew up in Nottingham, went to university in Exeter and has had so far only fleeting experiences of the Lakes. “But I’m looking forward to getting up there and breathing some fresh air,” she said as rehearsals continued in London. Meanwhile, she has become besotted with Dorothy.

William Wordsworth tells a human story about the struggle between what we have to do and what we want to do; you don’t need to know anything about Wordsworth or poetry to enjoy it.

It is set in 1812 and the 41-year-old poet, his wife Mary, his sister-in-law Sarah plus Dorothy and the five Wordsworth children are living in Grasmere. The family is short of cash: Wordsworth is desperate to carry on writing but needs a regular income to put food on the family table.

Both John and Emma managed to swerve past Wordsworth’s poetry when at school and college. John preferred Shelley, Emma preferred Shakespeare. But both have been doing their homework. “Wordsworth is a man of huge contradictions which makes it a very human experience to play him,” said John, having read a biography of Wordsworth. “He’s intransigent, arrogant, visionary. But he is also a family man wanting to do his best while trying to pursue a passionate vocation. "That’s a really interesting journey for me so far.

“Late in life he told a bishop: ‘I’ve never had much need of salvation.’ I guess he saw the eternal in the present. It’s about accepting our spirituality here and now, that our experience of the world is not about an experience with a specific god and an afterlife.”

Emma has read and is fascinated by Dorothy’s letters and journals. “I love Dorothy. It’s been wonderful to try to work out who she was. She’s a bit of a riddle but that’s what makes it interesting. I think she is an extraordinary person.

“For someone who didn’t have a very advanced education, she had an amazing eye for the landscape and the minutiae of life. The sights and sounds that she conjures are so evocative - I’m transfixed by her and I’m very much enjoying her company. I hear her voice very clearly.”

Now she is using all that research to create Pierpan’s Dorothy. “The wonderful thing about working on a new play is that it’s your gift to make for the very first time the 3-D version of something someone has written. That’s both a great pleasure and something of a responsibility.”

John began acting at junior school and at 17 played a 65-year-old professor in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. “I think that was the moment when the acting passion truly ignited and I didn’t look back after that. It just became a central part of my life - being other people, exploring other worlds and telling stories.”

Emma also acted at school but didn’t know about drama schools so did a degree in English and drama - and lots of student theatre. She and the rest of the cast will have a month or so in Keswick and, with walks in mind for days off, is going to buy a new pair of boots from one of the town’s umpteen outdoor shops.

“I’m looking forward to lying on a mossy bank and gazing up at the stars,” she said. And that’s probably what Wordsworth would have done.

William Wordsworth by Nicholas Pierpan runs at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake from April 1-22.

Box office 017687-74411.