GWEN Taylor is an actress who has appeared in many British television programmes including Barbara, Coronation Street and Heartbeat.

Now 77, she plays Mrs Bramson in a revival of Emlyn Williams’ 1935 play Night Must Fall in Eastbourne. The psychological thriller is set in a remote woodland and is based around the disappearance of a local woman. Will Featherstone (seen in Channel 4’s Fresh Meat) plays Dan, the smooth-talking newcomer suspected of murder.

EDWIN GILSON speaks to Taylor about her “nasty” character, performing in Eastbourne over the years and how her age means she has to learn her lines in different ways.

Hi Gwen, how are rehearsals going?

I’ve just been in the costume room, and I’m so thrilled with my outfits. The play is set in 1935 but my character is about 20 years out of date. So my costume is a bit Downton Abbey-matron looking.

What can you tell us about your character, Mrs Bramson?

She’s very nasty. She wants everybody buzzing round her, doing everything that she wants. She can’t be nice about anything – if somebody says, ‘it looks like a nice day,’ she’ll say ‘it will cloud over.’ Everything is negative. One of the characters calls her Madame Crocodile. She thinks everybody respects her, but in fact they all rather hate her.

It’s set in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Essex, and she, a widow, rules the roost. You get the impression she has not had a very happy life at all, and that she is trying to make everybody else have a piece of that unhappiness.

Do you take a perverse glee in playing such a role?

Oh yes. It’s always fun to play those people who come back at you with a witty sarcastic quip. You could never do that in real life, people would just blank you. I get a chance to do that in this play, and of course it is fun.

Did you take to the script straight away?

Actually, I remember seeing a production of it a long time ago with Albert Finney. I took to it instantly. Emlyn Williams starred as the main character after he wrote it, which really sent him on the road in his career.

How does your character come to be involved with the potential murderer, Dan?

Mrs Bramson has a maid that gets pregnant, and in to her life comes this young man who is responsible for this pregnancy. She keeps telling him about immorality, and that ‘we don’t want that kind of thing here’. She ends up forcing him to leave his job and be in her employ as a kind of footman.

It’s his personality which permeates every aspect of the house. There is a guy called Will Featherstone playing that character, and he’s so good at acting out that role which is so full of subterfuge.

What motivation does Dan have for possibly committing murder?

It is very difficult to say. We’ve talked about it as actors and Will has some ideas but I don’t know. Sometimes, does evil exist in the world and in people? I think he has a mother fixation, and probably hated his mother.

He’s acting all the time; he very rarely is truthful. He has a skill of meeting somebody for the first time and knowing exactly what to say to get his way.

Does the audience start to suspect Dan of the crime at a relatively early stage in the play?

The intriguing thing about the play is not that it is ‘whodunnit,’ because everyone suspects quite early on who done it. It is when is he going to do it again, and who is he going to do it to. Everybody on stage suspects him, so the audience comes round to thinking this too.

There’s a moment in the play where I want the audience to go, ‘ohhhhh!’ – the more people doing that, the more we know we’ve got them.

The blurb of the play says that the press are ‘baying for blood’ around the murder – is hysteria and speculation a major feature of the play?

All of the characters are thrilled because they are in the papers. Mrs Bramson keeps saying ‘there’s a picture of me in the paper!’ She shouldn’t really be in the paper, she just happens to live in a cottage where a body has been found.

Several of the characters are very narcissistic, and that’s why they don’t see what is in front of their eyes at the beginning.

You’ve been in a few productions in Eastbourne over the years, haven’t you?

I’ve done Before the Party and Driving Miss Daisy here before. I started in the theatre for five years before getting some TV and film roles. I can’t remember when the first time I was here was – I’ve done Brighton, Worthing and Eastbourne so it all gets merged into the South Coast generally.

I remember loving being here though, and I have a lot of friends here. Now I get to a certain age I’m afraid there aren’t so many friends still around, but there are still some.

Even with your experience, do you experience nerves before a theatre run like this?

I am nervous, yes – as you get to a certain age things don’t slip into place so easily. I used to learn lines incredibly quickly, but now I have to make a determined effort to learn them. I am scared sometimes, and I do have moments of real fear that I won’t get the right queues and everything.

It seems to be all right, though – dear old Doctor Theatre comes out and I make it work. I just have to work that much harder.

What are your techniques for learning lines, now and historically?

Historically, if I rehearsed a scene I could remember it the next day. Now I have to spend the time doing it before we start rehearsals, familiarising myself with a role. I have to do a bit more work at home now, and I put the whole play on a Dictaphone so I can play it back and hear myself and the other characters.

It’s strange to listen to it all back. I’m awfully good at the other characters’ lines – I think I’m sometimes better at them than I am at mine!

Night Must Fall, Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, Friday, August 19 to Saturday, September 3, 7.45pm (2.30pm matinee on Wednesday and Saturday), from £15, call 01323 412 000