Appearing alone on stage for 90 minutes without a break hoping to entertain 700 people at a time could be a nightmare for many people. But Aisling Loftus is preparing to do just that – and is relishing the challenge.

The Nottinghamshire actress came to prominence in the ITV drama series Mr Selfridge. Last year she was cast in the second series of the BBC drama Sherwood, some of which was filmed in the county.

Now she is returning to the Nottingham Playhouse stage in the regional premiere of Dennis Kelly’s one-woman show Girls & Boys, “a story of love, marriage and eventually family violence”.

Aisling’s status in the acting world is such that she got the part through an email. She was asked if she would like to meet Anna Ledwich who is directing Girls & Boys to see if they could work together. They hit it off straightaway.

“I said to Anna I wish in some ways that I’d auditioned for the part because she’d know for sure that I was up to it and I’d know for sure that I was up to it. Fingers crossed – it’ll all work out for the best,” says Aisling.

“We’re all working on the play together and I don’t feel very lonely in the process at this point in time.”

“You know how you click with some people – you think you’ve got a common language very quickly. Anna is absolutely brilliant. I really love rehearsals for theatre. It’s so exciting.”

Aisling is speaking to me from London where she is rehearsing the play before it will be performed at Nottingham Playhouse. Now that she is getting her teeth into the part, the thought of being alone on that stage is less frightening for her.

“I’m not zooming out quite so much any more,” says Aisling who has not lost her Nottinghamshire accent even though she now lives in London. “We’re all working on the play together and I don’t feel very lonely in the process at this point in time.”

The WhatsOnStage website has picked Girls & Boys as one of the most exciting plays being staged in 2025. So does this put more pressure on Aisling?

She laughs as she replies: “It probably puts pressure on Anna and it probably puts pressure on the Playhouse but not me!”

Writer Dennis Kelly is best known for the stage musical Matilda. Girls & Boys has been described as “one of the most intense and gripping things he has ever written”. Carey Mulligan took the role of the unnamed woman when the play was first produced at London’s Royal Court in 2018.

“Dennis is a remarkable writer,” says Aisling. “Irrespective of the subject matter, there’s this dark humour running through Girls & Boys like in a stick of rock.

“It’s a very difficult play to talk about without revealing too much but you really go on a journey with this woman.”

Aisling Sinead Katie Loftus was born on 1st September 1990 in Nottingham to Irish parents. She got into acting when she was nine, enrolling at the Television Workshop which counted Samantha Morton, Vicky McClure and Derby’s Jack O’Connell among its students.

The Workshop enabled her to get parts in The Bill and Casualty while she was still at school. Then in 2010 Aisling and O’Connell starred in the BBC drama Dive which dealt with the problems of teenage relationships and pregnancy against the backdrop of a young diver’s preparations for the Olympic Games. The Observer predicted that Aisling would be a “phenomenon”.

Three years later Aisling was cast as Agnes Towler in Mr Selfridge, the ITV period drama about the London department store. She appeared in the first three series which were watched by more than seven million viewers.

That propelled Aisling into the big time although she doesn’t look at it that way: “I’m just grateful to keep on getting work. I love my job. I always feel lucky to do it. I’d done a few thing I’m really proud of before I got Mr Selfridge. I’m very proud of it but there are other things that I’m even more proud of.

“I particularly love doing theatre. I did Small Island (Helen Edmundson’s play based on Andrea Levy’s novel) at the National Theatre. That will forever be a highlight of my life. It was a really moving experience.”

Another highlight was the last time she was at Nottingham Playhouse. It was in 2017 when she appeared in Stephen Lowe’s play Touched, described as “the best play written about Nottingham” by the city’s “most eminent” playwright. It also featured Vicky McClure.

“I was and am a massive fan of Vicky,” says Aisling. “She’s an incredible actor. I feel really lucky that I got to work with Vicky.

“She was in an older group to me at the Television Workshop and I saw her doing Measure For Measure. I’ve never really got on with Shakespeare – I feel like it goes over my head. Anyway, when she did the play I was completely floored by it. She was 16 or 17 at the time. It opened my eyes. Shakespeare could be for me if there was someone like Vicky doing it.”

Aisling still gets back to Nottingham to see her mum and she was in the county last year to film Sherwood in which she played Sandy Waters who was married to the newly appointed Sheriff of Nottingham.

“When I watched the first series I thought ‘I want to be in that’. The first series was brilliant and the second one was too. It was a brilliant experience.”

The show featured David Morrissey as a retired police detective who had the task of trying to reduce violence in a fractured community.

“I think David is a fantastic leading man,” says Aisling. “I loved working with him. I’m so glad to have been part of it.”

Aisling is known for her work in film, television and theatre. So which does she gravitate towards?

“I definitely prefer theatre but when you get a director on a telly job that works you like a theatre director, it feels fantastic. It feels like you get the best of both worlds.

“I do prefer theatre because I think there’s something so incredible about the shared experience of theatre, being in a room with other people when you’re all going on this journey together and the kind of immediate effect you have on people.

“With telly there’s this two-screen thing: a lot of the time people are scrolling on their phones, doing whatever they’re doing and then glancing up at the telly. You don’t do that in a theatre – you’re locked in. And that’s what makes it even more special nowadays.”

Six years ago Aisling married actor and musician Jacob Anderson who played Grey Worm in the fantasy drama series Game of Thrones. They have two daughters, one who has just started school and the other is eight months old.

Aisling believes it helps that both of them are in the same profession: “It means that one of us can be in London with the children and the other can be doing something else. So it’s worked out very well so far.”

“Every time I get to work with a really brilliant director, it makes me better. So I’d like to keep doing that.”

As for the future, Aisling doesn’t have a part in mind that she’s dying to play – but she knows what she wants to do.

“Every time I get to work with a really brilliant director, it makes me better. So I’d like to keep doing that.

“You can have a mediocre script and if you’ve got a good director, it’s just joyful whereas if you’ve got a middling director, it doesn’t matter how good the script is, you’re never going to wring the juice out of it.

“I just want to work with good directors. And that’s what I’m getting to do right now, so that’s nice.”

Aisling Loftus is hugely talented but she’s in no way pretentious. She believes luck has played a big part in her career. But luck doesn’t get you anywhere if you don’t have talent. Aisling has it in abundance. After Girls & Boys she may be in such demand that her husband will spend more time looking after their children.

Girls & Boys will run at Nottingham Playhouse from Saturday 8 February until Saturday 1 March 2025

* This article originally appeared in Country Images magazine