Josie just loves to be back home

Josie Lawrence deliberately asked her agent to find her a role in the Midlands so she could spend some time back home.

The actress and comedienne from Old Hill is now preparing to take the lead role in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood at the Birmingham Rep in April.

Josie will play the part of a secret spymaster who is given the task of exposing a traitor who is leaking vital information to the Russians, a role she says she is very much looking forward to, as well as the chance to spend some time with her family.

Her mother Kathy still lives in Old Hill, while brother John lives in Netherton and sister Janet is in Blackheath.

Josie makes regular trips back to the Midlands to see them but she says she is looking forward to the extended stay when the play opens in April.

Despite moving to London in 1983 she has always maintained a deep affection for the Black Country - as well as the Express & Star.

The paper's former theatre critic Ray Seaton was the first to spot Josie's impressive talent and tipped her for stardom in the mid-1970s.

She said: "The Express & Star will always be close to my heart. Ray Seaton did my first ever feature which ran a picture of me alongside the words "young actress destined for the professional stage".

"I was 16 at the time and had won a prize for a Shakespearean speech at Cheltenham. I've kept the cuttings. They are in my mother's scrapbook. I was with the Barlow Players performing at the Oldbury Playhouse."

Josie says she has always been a big fan of Black Country people, especially the humour.

She said: "The accent sometimes gets discredited but I love it. I've just been home and when I got back my friend said to me 'you sound really broad'.

"I was saying ar instead of yes. But I love the accent. You can tell when someone likes you in the Black Country as they will take the mickey out of you."

Josie said she has had a long-standing ambition to be involved with a show set in the Midlands and in the mid-1990s was trying to a get a drama commissioned about a worker at the Black Country Museum called Walking the Tunnel. Although that particular project may never see the light of day she is in talks with writers about another show set in the Midlands but all the details are secret at the moment.

The 48-year-old rose to fame as a member of the Comedy Store Players in 1987 and later appeared as a regular guest on the improvised comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Straight

Josie has appeared in a number of past performances at The Rep including The Alchemist in 1996. More recently Josie appeared in Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques: The Musical, in the West End.

She has won awards for both her comic and straight work, including the Dame Peggy Ashcroft Award for best actress.

Her TV roles have included ITV's Fat Friends, three series of the award-winning Outside Edge and her own series, Josie. The comedienne is also a patron of The Sunfield school in Clent, near Stourbridge, which cares for children with learning disabilities.

Her Radio Four sketch show with Jim Sweeney - The Lawrence Sweeney Mix is also starting a new series shortly moving to a 6.30pm slot.

Tickets for Hapgood are now on sale. Call the box office on 0121 236 4455.