A KESWICK actress is starring in BBC2’s political satire The Thick Of It.

Polly Kemp, 45, who lived at Vicarage Hill until she was 18, has appeared in several episodes of the series and said her character, Robyn Murdoch, is likely to appear again this season but because the show is so topical, and scripts are regularly altered, she could not say which episodes she will be in next.

Polly performed in amateur theatre at Keswick School and Keswick Amateur Operatic Society before moving to London to work as a nanny for her father’s friends Dame Judi Dench and Sir Michael Williams. She said working for Judi and Michael in London was an exciting time and spending holidays with them as a child inspired her to become an actress.

“My family took me to see them in theatre, when I was younger, and this had an impact. The first performance I saw them in was the Merchant of Venice and I remember how great they were and the atmosphere of the theatre and thinking this was what I wanted to do.

“We would stay with both of them regularly and I remember Judi bought me a book called How To Put On Your Own Plays,” she said.

“I performed in amateur productions for the operatic society and starred as the lead in The Magic Rocking Chair at the old Blue Box theatre when I was 12. Youth theatre in Cumbria wasn’t as great in the 70s and we didn’t have the fabulous facilities that are on offer to young actors today,” she added.

“I started working for the Royal Shakespeare Company when I was 24 and I did lots of theatre for 10 years and then moved on to TV.”

She added: “I love the Lake District and I try to get back as often as I canto have a break from London and to see my family who still live here.

“The walks here are beautiful. Both my parents were keen walkers when we were younger and this is one of the reasons we moved to Keswick.”

She regularly visits her old home to see her mother and her brother, Denstone, who is a town and borough councillor.

Polly, who recently appeared in BBC drama series Desperate Romantics as Mrs Siddal, said she loves working on the BBC series because of its creativity and collaboration between the cast and script writers.

“This series is different to others I’ve starred in because the script writers will write a script for us, then when we rehearse they will let us act out some improvised lines. They will consider the additional material and go back and rewrite the scripts. They will do this process a few times,” she said.

“Even on the day of filming, our writer and director Armando Iannucci will ask us to change lines that he doesn’t like or add lines here and there. The final takes are filmed loose and free but cut together with improvised scenes and some heavily scripted scenes.

“It really is a collaborative effort between cast and the writers, but our writers here are amazing. It really is brilliant, a unique process, and I think this is why it has won so many awards.

“My hopes for the future are to do more TV and hopefully to do some more theatre work because that is where my passion for acting first began.”