Actors Joshua Jenkins, Chris Ashby, Clare Perkins and Roberta Carr talk to Steve Pratt about the demands of touring a West End hit play

JOSHUA JENKINS had never seen The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time on stage so didn’t know what to expect from a production whose physical demands are as great as the acting ones. He got an idea when, on the second day of rehearsals, movement director Scott Graham asked him to walk up the wall.

“It’s amazing how quickly it moves on because yesterday I did it – walked along the set on the wall. It’s surprising what you can do when you put your mind to it and stay open to the possibility,” he says.

The scenes he’s rehearsing when the press visit find him being carried aloft by other cast members as he walks on the wall and “flies” in space. He’s being manipulated head over heels, backwards, forwards, every which way and all the time dependent on his fellow performers to keep him airborne as his character Christopher’s “space walk” is enacted.

He needs to be fit for the tour as Christopher never leaves the stage during the production’s two hour 40 minute running time. He’ll play the role for five performances a week with Chris Ashby, the alternate Christopher, doing the other three shows.

“I just went for the approach, let’s go for it and dived straight into it and hoped for the best,” says Swansea-born Jenkins, 27, of beginning rehearsals.

“It’s incredibly exciting, unlike any other job a young actor can have. It’s quite a unique experience. We’re only a week-and-a-half into rehearsals and my body has been stretched to points I didn’t think it possible to stretch it to. The physical demands are unlike most other shows. I spent a year at the RSC and it was the complete opposite really, just sitting round a table discussing it.”

All the actors have been researching autism and Asperger disorders, although those terms are never spoken about Christopher in the play. “When you meet these people and find out about them it really does change your perspective on how brilliant and wonderful their minds are,” says Ashby. “The way it’s written and staged it’s not about autism, it’s just a story from the perspective of this brilliant boy who sees the world a little bit differently. You’re being invited to see the world the way he sees it.”

For ex-EastEnders actress Clare Perkins Christopher’s condition has special resonance her daughter has Williams syndrome, which is similar to Asperger’s. “When they’re small it’s like the opposite of autism because they have absolutely no social inhibitions. As they get older they get quite particular and have their obsessions,” she says.

Her daughter is now 23, having been diagnosed when she was two. Most children with the condition are musically gifted. Her daughter Kali, for instance, plays the piano without having had any lessons and now sings in a band.

Perkins is recognisable from EastEnders, where she played Cora’s daughter Ava. As for a return to the BBC soap, she says “They did say we haven’t killed you so we might ask you back. But it’s been a year, so I doubt it”.

Another cast member Roberta Kerr is another ex-soap face. She played one of Ken Barlow’s lady friends Wendy Crozer in Coronation Street. She first appeared in 1989 and returned two years ago to pester Ken. And like Jenkins, she’s walked up the wall although her characters doesn’t do it in the production.

“I make sure everyone has a chance to do it,” says movement director Scott Graham. “We don’t get involved in conversations about what people can and can’t do. They’re all doing it. Stage management do the warm-up exercises too. We’re not asking the actors to do anything we wouldn’t do ourselves.”