When Lydia West steps onto the Barbican stage next week to make her professional theatre debut, she has an advantage: the much-loved star of It’s a Sin is playing a character who has never performed live before. “She doesn’t have the chops to tell the story, so she’s going to be a bit of a wreck on stage,” West laughs. “And that might work in my favour!”
Talking to her, it’s clear the infectious enthusiasm and glorious spirit that has carried West to star (and almost national treasure) status not just in It’s a Sin, but Years and Years, Inside Man and a host of other prestige dramas, is undimmed.
