Actors Michael Simkins, one of the stars of the Orange Tree Theatre’s hit revival of Taking Steps, tells Will Gore why he is revelling in his return to the world of Alan Ayckbourn.

Taking Steps has had some cracking reviews - are you pleased with how it has been going?

It’s going as well as I hoped it would. It is an odd piece for me because it is full of resonances. When I was 22 I played the young lead in this show for Alan Ayckbourn up in Scarborough. It was a very big break for me. I took over four months into the original run in and it was an extremely happy time. So I came to it with this expectation of this golden time when the play went so well in the 70s and I’m pleased to say it is going every bit as well now, it still works a treat.

Has Alan’s approach to directing changed since 1979?

It hasn’t changed a jot and that is no disrespect to him. He was always the most delicate of directors. He directs by inference, anecdote and gentle suggestion and through the medium of everyone having a good time and that is very liberating.

Do you feed off the fact the audience come expecting to enjoy themselves at an Ayckbourn play?

Of course, people are coming to see this show are an Ayckbourn savvy audience - these are the people he writes about - and I think certainly Alan has a reputation for the sort of evening it is going to be. In that sense there is a shorthand for the audience and that helps but the wonderful thing about Taking Steps is that it is one of his seven or eight greatest plays but unlike most of the other great ones this one isn’t as well known. People are coming to see it knowing the playwright, knowing the theatre but not really knowing the play and nothing is more conducive to a good night in the theatre than not knowing what is going to happen next.

The play is set on three levels of a house - does that get a little confusing for actors and audience?

No, it’s terrific. The fun is that the audience have to join you in the pretense. They have to work it out - you can almost here there brain cells whirring. Once they’ve worked it out they delight in taking part in the artifice.

Your character, the domineering Roland Crabbe, must be a fun one to play?

He is basically a nice guy but he is very succesful, drinks too much and doesn’t really listen to anything anyone says . If he was an animal he’d be a bullock because he charges in and splatters everybody.

Taking Steps, Orange Tree Theatre, until May 29, for more information and to book tickets, visit orangetreetheatre.co.uk