Brian Beacom

WHEN a writer describes his new play as “an existentialist musical” there’s a real chance no one will actually know what that means, but it certainly intrigues.

Ashley Smith, who had to tell me that she can be seen in BBC Scotland’s Scot Squad as the young PC Jane Mackay who runs across lots of fields chasing nonsense, is one of the performers in Oran Mor’s Tap Dancing With Jean-Paul Sartre.

James Runcie’s “play” is set Paris, Spring 1956 where Fred Astaire (Darren Brownlie) the world’s greatest dancer, Jean-Paul Sartre (Kevin Lennon) the world’s most influential philosopher and Audrey Hepburn, (Smith) the world’s most beautiful woman, meet up.

And so they discuss all sorts of things: Why are we here? Who are we? And what will we do if we can’t dance?

“Fred and Audrey actually met, at the time of filming funny Face, but not with Sartre,” says Smith.

“The play talks about the platonic relationship between Fred and Audrey. And Sartre touches on their relationship, and asks a series of interesting questions, wondering if an actor is never not acting, and what is their reality?”

The Fife-born actress, who first trod the boards with Lochgelly Children’s Musical Theatre, adds; “Sartre wants to know can things be real once they are captured and edited. There are lots of themes posed.

“And there are a few tunes repeated throughout the piece.”

Smith loves the very idea of playing Audrey Hepburn. “I’ve grown up watching her films, and I’ve been re-watching some recently.

“I don’t know anyone who isn’t a fan. She has an amazing energy on screen, but then on reading up on her I’ve come to realise that for most of her young life she was a really sad person.”

Smith explains that Hepburn grew up the child of aristocratic parents. “She was born in the Netherlands and trained as a ballet dancer. Along the way she had two husbands, and two sons.”

Hepburn also coped with Nazi occupation and suffered survivors' guilt. She had a troubled personal life, at one point dumping lover William Holden because she found out he couldn’t have children.

Perhaps that inner sadness helped Hepburn to play very real characters? “Yes, I think there is something in that. Sadness, like other extreme experiences can help. She certainly is a multi-layered woman and with a great deal of life experience.”

If the best actors are those who can recall sadness to fuel a performance, I suggest Smith’s life must have featured very little misery, given she walked out of Glasgow’s RSAMD with the Gold Medal.

“I think your theory is wrong, mostly,” she says, grinning. “I’ve been happy growing up and I’ve been sad. But a performance emerges from all experiences.”

There is also dancing in the play. Did Lochgelly teach her to dance? “Yes, and I can dance a little. But Audrey wasn’t a great dancer, and we have Darren Brownlie, a brilliant dancer choreographing so I’m in great hands.”

Smith, who has worked with a range of theatre companies in Scotland including NTS, the Traverse and Catherine Wheel, also sings. “Yet, back in Lochgelly, I was never allowed to audition for any of the musical singing parts,” she says, laughing. “But I’m over that now. And I did have a lot of fun with other parts.”

She says she was so committed to the dream of acting that she moved schools at the end of Fourth Year in order to study drama. But was she so committed to this play that she studied Sartre in order to absorb the essence of Existentialism? “I haven’t gone that far into it,” she says, grinning. “And I would say this is a piece of entertainment. It doesn’t have you work too hard.”

Smith, who has wanted to act from a very early age, (“I once thought of being a policewoman, but was too short”) isn’t unlike Gigi star Hepburn, who died in 1993.

“Not too unlike her. And I’m going to get false eyelashes fitted and an Audrey haircut, which will give me a fringe.” She adds: “I haven’t had a fringe since I was 12 years-old.”

You have to suffer for your art. After all, Renee Zellweger put on 30 pounds to play Bridget Jones.

“Yes, just a little suffering,” she says, smiling.”

After Oran Mor, we will see her in Scot Squad when it returns in the autumn. A thought occurs to me. Would she fancy being a real-life police officer now that the height restrictions are gone?

“Not now,” she says, grinning. “I’ve sold my soul to the Devil. I’m happy to be a cop in Scot Squad.”

The BBC comedy show certainly offers her a great profile, I say. “Apparently not that great,” she says, laughing. “You didn’t know who I was.”

Tap Dancing With Jean-Paul Sartre, Oran Mor Glasgow, from Monday until next Saturday.