STEPHEN Tompkinson is a busy man. Each night, he's currently to be seen performing in the touring production of Art alongside Nigel Havers and Denis Lawson. By day, he's rehearsing Educating Rita which kicks off a 20-week tour in Keswick on April 23 and won't come to rest until the end of August. "I did Art for 18 weeks last year and knew I had 10 more weeks coming this year so I popped my lines into a separate compartment and dusted them off again when we resumed the second leg of the tour," says Stephen. "The brain's an amazing thing. When it knows it has to hang on to something, it will." What's more, in between, he played Scrooge at the Old Vic over Christmas, "the greatest story of redemption ever".
The likeable Stephen, 53, is a man of many parts. From less-than-ethical reporter Damien Day in C4's Drop The Dead Donkey in the 90s, he has moved from one small screen hit to another: Ballykissangel, Wild At Heart, DCI Banks and Trollied.
On the big screen, he starred in Brassed Off and Hotel Splendide. On stage, he had leading roles in Arsenic and Old Lace, Charley's Aunt and as King Arthur in Eric Idle's Spamalot. Clearly, he's pretty good at picking winners.
There haven't been any professional longueurs since he graduated from London's Central School of Speech and Drama in 1988. "And yet," he says, "I still don't feel like I've scratched enough of the surface."
As adept at comedy as at drama, he harbours the ambition to play two wildly differing roles: "I'd love to have a crack at Richard III one day because he was so comprehensively evil and a smiling villain to boot. You kind of want to see him succeed so you can discover if he has any personal boundaries," he says.
At the other end of the spectrum is another role he'd love to play: Willy Wonka. "Well, I'm open to offers," he says.
Married and twice divorced, he was engaged between the two marriages to his Ballykissangel co-star, Dervla Kirwan, but they never made it to the altar. And if she walked in here now...
"I'd be delighted. We're not in each other's lives anymore but I retain a real fondness for her."
Stephen Tompkinson is rehearsing Educating Rita (Image: Steve Reigate)
More recently, there has been a lengthy relationship with a woman who works at the Foreign Office but, he says, he prefers not to talk about his private life. He makes a happy exception, though, for his daughter, Daisy, 18, from his second marriage.
"I've tried telling her that acting is a precarious profession" he says. "I once took her into two shows of Spamalot on a Wednesday when the snow was thick on the ground and the auditorium was pretty sparse.
"But it didn't put her off one jot.
She's determined to follow in my footsteps. And the fact is I've been lucky to make a good living from it."
Daisy is currently on a course at the National Youth Film Academy and is auditioning for drama school.
"And I know I would say this but she obviously has talent. I've seen her perform and of course I couldn't help being biased but she has it all right," says her proud father.
For himself, he's looking forward to getting his weekends back when Educating Rita finally finishes.
"No more shouting at night," as he describes stage work. And he maintains he's good at switching off. An enthusiastic walker, he thinks nothing of a
