Daniel Hill is sporting a moustache at the moment for his part in Dial M For Murder, so he’s getting a lot of stick at home. But his main worry is being typecast by it. Katherine MacAlister investigates the strange world of Daniel Hill’s facial hair.

Well, I’ve had three parts to my career, the comedy phase (Waiting For God, Only Fools And Horses and No Place Like Home),” Daniel Hill tells me.

“Then there was the 12-year baddie phase when I was either the baddie or the goodie who was actually a baddie, and then there was the beard phase. I had to grow one for Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labours Lost and then every casting I went to after that they said ‘you’ve got the part but keep the beard’, which lasted for three years.

“So I’m terrified that I might have to keep this moustache. But actually you’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” he laughs. “And my children won’t even look at me.”

Luckily there is a light at the end of the tunnel as Daniel starts filming the last Harry Potter in March and is playing a wizard without any facial hair at all.

“I’m in the Ministry Of Magic in the last scenes of the last Harry Potter film. A friend of mine is the producer and has offered me parts before but I was always doing TV. But this time he said ‘this is your last chance, it’s this or nothing’.”

But back to the moustache. “Well it’s a 1950s military moustache,” Daniel explains, “because I play Captain Lesgate”.

And whatever Daniel feels about the hairy slug under his nose, he’s grinning and bearing it for Dial M For Murder, so impressed is he with the stage version of the Hitchcock classic.

“This play really is quite blistering,” he says. “It’s not a ‘whodunnit’, its a ‘how did he do it’. It’s a psychological thriller set in a spooky world of danger, where you side with the villain and have empathy for murder. It’s all about exploring what we are capable of.”

Another pull is that Daniel loves Oxford and knows it well having filmed Waiting For God on the outskirts. “I love Oxford because for six weeks a year, for five years running, we stayed at that hotel on the Wolvercote roundabout – oh, the glamour,” he laughs.

“But yes, I know all the good watering holes, but this time around I’ll be commuting back to London.”

Daniel, 53, lives in Barnes with his wife and three children, two of whom are following in his footsteps.

So has he encouraged them? “Well I have been very lucky because I do work but I have always put my cards on the table and told the children that while it’s wonderful when you are working, sometimes it’s not a job for a grown-up,” he says.

“But then if you really love it and can do it, who am I to tell them otherwise. My parents always supported me, so I should do the same for them. I know I’m the dad but if you have talent, which they do, no one will deny that.

“And besides I’ve always been coaching them inadvertently for this. Even in their school plays when they were five I would be saying ‘don’t overact, just listen’,” he laughs.

If the crowds at Dial M For Murder are anything to go by, they couldn’t have been better taught if they tried.

Daniel Hill is in Dial M For Murder at the Oxford Playhouse from Tuesday. Call the box office on 01865 305305.