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Maria Aitken

Maria Aitken is relaxing in her villa in Ibiza when I catch up with her.

But she assures me that she deserves the rest and when you consider that her current show The 39 Steps is showing on Broadway, the West End, Australia and Oxford, with sold-out performances everywhere and no sign of the enthusiasm waning, you see why.

In fact, such is the success of The 39 Steps, that even though there's a brand new play in the pipeline, ready to roll on to the stage in New York, where she now lives, Maria (pronounced Mariah) is already too busy.

She lives in America with her husband, famous author Patrick McGrath, her acting son Jack Davenport having moved to Hollywood, and her brother is disgraced Tory MP Jonathan Aitken.

But she also has strong English roots and a deep love for Oxford, "I do lead a double life because I'm married to a US citizen and he loves New York and I teach there too, and my son is on the West Coast which is four hours away."

Yet Oxford still has its pull. After all, this is where she shared a stage with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Dr Faustus, one of the few undergraduates chosen to star with the Hollywood legends on stage.

"I played Richard Burton's consciousness with wings and just watched him and Elizabeth Taylor's acting like a hawk, absorbing everything like a sponge."

Since then Maria has gone from strength to strength, starting out as an actress with films like A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures under her belt, until she decided a director and teacher role was more suited to her skills. She has been involved with top plays on both sides of the Atlantic ever since.

So how does the 63-year-old keep an eye on things when there are so many different productions going on all around the globe?

"Well, I have eyes everywhere," she smiles. "So if I hear that the timings are out by two minutes we do something about it. One of my stage managers recently rang to say that one of our Richard Hannays was dropping Kleenex all over the stage so I made him go out and buy a proper gentleman's handkerchief. It's the small things that count you know.

"But 39 Steps has become a mad mutating baby that's very hard to leave and you can't take your eye off the ball for a second."

For those of you who don't know The 39 Steps is a wonderfully inventive and gripping comedy thriller following the incredible adventures of our handsome hero Richard Hannay, complete with stiff-upper-lip, British gung-ho and pencil moustache as he encounters dastardly murders, double-crossing secret agents, and, of course, beautiful women, opening at the Playhouse on Monday.

So is Maria a workaholic, I venture? "I'm very good at lying down when I get the time to," she laughs. "But after three weeks I start getting itchy feet again."

She didn't manage to put her son off though - Jack Davenport having recently starred in Pirates Of The Caribbean?

"Well I thought I had," she laughs. "But then he turned round recently and said 'why didn't you think that I would want to do it when you've had a perfectly good life?' And I suppose he was right," she says with a wry smile.

Box Office on 01865 305305 or www.oxfordplayhouse.com

5:37pm Thursday 19th June 2008

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