Alan Ayckbourn's House/Garden must be one of the most unusual events ever staged by the Royal National Theatre. Featuring two interlinked plays about a village fete, House/Garden is performed simultaneously by the same cast in two auditoriums. Directed by Ayckbourn himself, the superb cast includes Jane Asher and David Haig but is worth tasting for another standout performance from one of Britain's most promising young actresses, Nina Sosanya.
Cult TV aficionados are already well aware of 30-year-old Sosanya - who in the mid-Nineties starred as Chilla in Hercules And The Amazon Woman, the pilot of the hysterically funny Hercules: The Legendary Journeys on Channel 5. But until House/Garden, Sosanya has been better known for serious roles with prestige companies such as the RSC.
Deep in rehearsals for House/Garden, Sosanya is still worried about scampering between the Lyttelton and Olivier theatres while concentrating on her role as Pearl Truce, the bawdy daughter of the housekeeper at the great manor house. 'I'm hoping I have a line to follow, because I have no sense of direction,' laughs the lithe 5ft 8in beauty. 'I could end up in All My Sons by mistake.'
As a child growing up in North London and Rutland with her scientist mum, and nan and grandad, Sosanya originally wanted to be an archaeologist. 'Then I decided I wanted to be a dancer. And I realised that actually I'd been acting all along. I was one of those people who was a monster in the playground. I was a terrible mimic. Well, not a terrible mimic, a very good mimic!'
After several injuries while dancing, Sosanya made the move into physical theatre with the Kosh group and discovered, 'I'm a much better actor than I was a dancer.' She had little formal training until joining the RSC, 'where I learned so much from these incredibly experienced, charismatic actors.' Sosanya says she has no acting heroes 'except odd people like Walter Matthau. It's the work itself that attracts, the fact that you work so closely with other people.' But with a healthy CV of theatrical hits, plus television roles in Prime Suspect 2, The Practice and the controversial Channel 5 series Urban Gothic already in the bag, it looks like Sosanya is well on the way to becoming a bit of a hero herself.
