Nothing is quite what it seems with Siobhan Redmond - her name for a start. She's not Irish, but a Glaswegian Scot with accent and attitude to boot. With her red hair and blue eyes she certainly fits the Celtic stereotype - though her hair is not naturally red either, it turns out.
"My father's father's father was born in Ireland: Wexford. But I hated my name when I was little because no one knew how to spell it, or if they saw it written down, nobody knew how to say it. Sigh-o-be-harn, or Shebeen or Cheroot or Chevette. I've had them all. For my sister Grainne, it's far worse. At least now Siobhan is fairly common. I wanted to change it to something far more flowery and girly, but my mother said Why? She said, once people learn how to say your name they don't forget, and anyway I thought it would look good in lights."
Next week, the once-despised name will be above the title of one of the most erotically charged plays ever written, in a city that will know how it is pronounced, when Christopher Hampton's adaptation of the Choderlos de Laclos expose of 18th-century sexual games-playing, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, arrives at the Gaiety with the Mobil Touring Theatre.
Redmond plays the central role of archschemer the Marquise de Merteuil, a woman whose amorality and ruthlessness leave even 21st-century audiences gasping. It is a fantastic part for any actor, as evidenced by those who have played it. The original stage version made a star of Lindsay Duncan, then there were two films.
Although Redmond saw the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons when it was released, she decided not to watch it again, she says. "Because I knew that whatever I did would be some kind of reaction to what Glenn Close was doing." Valmont, the other cinematic version directed by Milos Forman and starring Annette Bening, was recently broadcast on TV. Redmond has it on tape and will watch it once the tour is over. Nor did she see the original production staged in 1985 by The Royal Shakespeare Company 15 years ago, though it lives on in legend.
"Christopher Hampton said two things to me: `I wrote this in part to give the Marquise de Merteuil a really, really good time, so have a good time. And as much pain as you can get in there is good, because her one weakness is what she feels for Valmont.' And it's such a brilliant play, and Merteuill . . . well I can't tell you how much I adore this woman.' "
Siobhan Redmond had wanted to be an actor since she was a child. Her father was a lecturer in English and Drama at Strathclyde University and her mother was "a very brilliant" amateur actor and director. "There were always copies of plays hanging around the house, and they took Grainne and me to the theatre whenever they could, so it didn't appear an odd thing to do."
Although Redmond was classically trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - and just watching her move across the stage is a lesson to all young actresses - she rarely has a chance to play costume drama. Television viewers may know her as the steely red-headed sidekick to Neil Pearson in the award-winning police series Be- tween the Lines. "Usually I am cast at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, either to bleed all over the carpet or make jokes." And her humour bubbles out at every opportunity. One of her first television appearances, she tells me, was in a programme called Alfresco. "The cast: Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Ben Elton, Robbie Coltrane and me. Where are they now?" And she gives a throaty, cigarette-tawny laugh.
This will be her first time on stage on Dublin. She has only been to Ireland twice, the last time to see Tony Doyle in The Cavalcaders, a "works outing" for the cast of Between the Lines. Mention of his name stops her in her tracks. "Terrible. A great great loss. Just at the point where everyone in Britain was beginning to realise what everyone in our profession has known for years."
Siobhan Redmond is perhaps everyone's idea of an actress, glamorous in an unstated, I've-only-had-five-hours-sleep kind of way, with a tightly-waisted jacket, black trousers and high-heeled boots, and never happier than when discussing other actors, productions and performances. Theatre and acting are what consume her. She still doesn't feel completely happy working with cameras, she admits. "It took me a long time to think about asking the cameraman where the bottom of the frame was because there's no point in doing what I think is very significant if no bugger is going to see it."
Talk of hands takes us to another great Irish actor, Michael Gambon. She recounts that when she was with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London playing Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing ("I was bad, so bad. Bad for 18 months") and Gambon was in the studio theatre at the Barbican, he appeared on stage in Much Ado as one of the returning army, disguised in a borrowed cape. And she laughs that Joan Greenwood laugh. "And he said `Oh I was bloody awful in Much Ado at the National'. Very sweet of him to say so, but Gambon? Bloody awful? I don't think so."
The success of both Irish and Scots actors over recent years is their willingness to act "with all of them" she believes. "I'm aware this is a sweeping generalisation, but there isn't the same concentration for Celtic actors with what's happening with their voices. Now sometimes that might not be a good thing. But to watch, I find it more interesting. I find more Celtic actors who are able and willing to work from the souls of their feet up. Take Michael Gambon: all you have to do with that man is look at his fingers. You could watch an entire performance of Michael Gambon, just looking at his fingers and be spellbound."
Another reason she jumped at the chance to play the Marquise de Merteuil was, she says, that she's "still young enough to do it". Wait any longer, she says, and "I'll be playing Dulcie's part". Dulcie Grey plays an aged aunt, and it's hard to imagine there's an older actress still strutting the boards in the world. How old is she, I ask? "I wouldn't dream of asking her," says Redmond reprovingly. "Although she did say last week that the BBC were doing something for her 80th birthday and she laughed hollowly." We agree we should add nearly 10 years to that. "She makes age irrelevant. Not only do you hear every word but she says things like `And George Bernard Shaw came to the rehearsals, and he was perfectly sweet to all the actors, very sweet man'. And you do this colossal double-take and you think, I'm working with somebody who worked with Shaw!"
As for whether older audiences will cope with the raw sexuality of the play, Redmond believes that it's a mistake to imagine that they will be easily offended. "In fact they've lived it all, they've seen it all. They've stayed up all night sewing the sequins onto the shirt, there is nothing you can do that will surprise them." And that's important, she says. "Because the audience is such a huge part of the evening, much more than someone sitting in an auditorium who's never been on a stage could ever realise. They go towards making the chemistry what it is that evening."
Les Liaisons Dangereuses plays at the Gaiety from Tuesday to Saturday