Best known for her role as Beverley, the brutal hostess of Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party, Alison Steadman is expert at building all-too-real characters around something as insubstantial as a low-cut dress.

So she's quite at home with her character in Losing Louis, a warm-hearted vulgarian who wears a bulging cocktail dress to her father-in-law's funeral.

And, having fine-tuned Sheila's walk, her make-up and the way she smokes a cigarette, Steadman even put herself through the "extremely tedious" process of watching all the Star Wars videos to ensure her character's fleeting Darth Vader impression is just right.

First staged in 1995, Losing Louis is a comedy of social embarrassment which saw its author Simon Mendes da Costa, a former estate agent, nominated for Most Promising Playwright by the Evening Standard.

Steadman starred with David Horovitch in the original version and on this tour they are joined by Rula Lenska, fresh from her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, and David Cardy of Birds Of A Feather.

Going straight for the biggies - love, sex and death - Losing Louis, rather like Richard Bean's Honeymoon Suite, is set in the same room at different times.

It is the bedroom Fifties philanderer Louis shares with his pregnant wife, Bobbie, but also, crucially for the plot, his pretty young protege Bella.

Following Louis' funeral, it is also the scene of a present-day reunion between his two sons, Tony (Horovitch) and Reggie (Cardy), and their wives Sheila and Elizabeth (Lenska).

"Tony and Sheila live in a three-bedroom semi in Crawley with a Rover car and a disabled daughter," explains Steadman. "Reggie, his younger brother, is a high-flying barrister with a house in Spain, a Ferrari and twins who are very bright. His wife, Elizabeth, is very cool and glamorous and looks like she's just sailed through life."

But underneath, Elizabeth also has her own problems - such as her husband's womanising and a rather sensitively located body piercing.

Working with Rula Lenska and her "stunning flaming red hair" has, says Steadman, been "wonderful." But don't ask her if she followed her co-star's progress on Celebrity Big Brother.

"I can't stand that programme," she howls. "I couldn't stand it when it first started - what was it, ten years ago? - and I still can't stand it now. I think it's a complete and utter waste of everybody's time, whoever's in it. Personally, they'd have to drag me there in handcuffs."

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