KATHERINE MACALISTER talks to the very familiar faces starring in Von Ribbentrop’s Watch at the Oxford Playhouse.

Oh come on Cassandra!” You can still hear Rodney’s sulky voice following Gwyneth Strong around even today, despite the fact that she’s preparing for her lead role in the premiere of Von Ribbentrop’s Watch opening at the Oxford Playhouse.

And yet Gwyneth knows her defining role in Only Fools And Horses paved the way to her becoming one of the UK’s most recognisable actresses.

And now that her children are 20 and 22 she is loving every minute of her return to the theatre.

But it obviously doesn’t get any easier, however well established you are, because Gwyneth is as terrified at the prospect today as she was as a small girl: “There is always a heady mix of excitement-while-feeling-sick-to-the-pit-of-your-stomach when we first read through the play,” she admits.

“And it doesn’t seem to get any better. I’ve been doing this since I was 11 and yet there are a few girls in the cast who are doing this for the first time, but we all feel the same,” she smiles.

“But then the process happens and it all starts to work and from then on you just try to make it come together.

“Rehearsals are particularly torturous, because it’s the audience that gives the play the weight.”

So does an unknown play add to the anxiety? “Well, I have been lucky in that I do seem to do mostly new stuff which no one else has performed before, so you can really make the part your own.

“And Von Ribbentrop’s Watch is getting me going in many areas,” she says teasing. “It really gets the adrenalin going especially when I realised the play is based on a true story.

“So there is quite a bit of excitement among the cast about the potential of this play, although the joy evaporates when you realise you have to start doing the work,” she laughs.

Gwyneth plays the lead character Gerald’s wife, and the whole storyline plays out in her kitchen.

“All the cast play family members,” she explains.

So does someone as well known and established as Gwyneth still have to audition.

“Oh yes, some work is just given to me, but auditioning is still how it works and I hope I’ll still be doing it in my old age,” she admits.

And yet Gwyneth’s most famous part as Cassandra in Only Fools and Horses was initially simply a way of keeping her hand in after her children were born (she married former Footballers Wives and Eldorado star Jesse Birdsall).

“My son was only six months old actually,” she remembers. “But I only auditioned for one episode and I thought it would be the perfect way to get back into the saddle. Little did I know it would be 15 years before I got off it again,” she laughs.

So did Gwyneth find it difficult to juggle motherhood with working? “You would have been a fool to turn that role down. It was such a wonderful job and it wasn’t a soap opera so it wasn’t constant which was great for parenting because you’d do your stint and then have time off between series.

“But had someone said ‘do you want to be in this show that will run for 15 years’, who knows what I would have said?”.

* Von Ribbentrop’s Watch runs at Oxford Playhouse from next Thursday until September 18. Box office on 01865 305305.