FOR many years now Imogen Stubbs has been seen as one of Britain's leading actresses, playing a host of characters on stage and screen.

Her film and television roles have seen her playing characters such as Lucy Steele in Sense and Sensibility and Ursule in the BBC adaptation of The Rainbow.

In the public mind she is seen as one of those serious actresses, always landed with weighty roles, and some might say the same thing of her forthcoming appearance in Chekhov's Three Sisters at Malvern Festival Theatre.

Yet Imogen is keen to dispel that image of herself. "I have been cast on television as serious but I'm really not that serious at all."

As evidence she points to one of her more recent appearances, as Sarah in Big Kids on BBC television, and the reaction she had to it.

"Grown-ups who have children would come up to me and say they became completely addicted to the programme, because it was so silly."

She is delighted to be returning to Malvern but has not always had the best of luck when visiting the area.

"The first time I came with St Joan in 1995 and the entire set stuck half-way between the floor and the ceiling," she said.

That experience came on the play's press night and she added: "It was the maddest thing and at the end of the night we actually clapped the audience because we couldn't expect them to clap us."

She once lived in the area for a brief time in a village between Evesham and Stratford, although she cannot recall which one.

"I have always worked in Birmingham and Stratford," she said, "It was a spontaneous buy and I bought it in the dark. It was a catastrophe."

When she visited the house it overlooked an orchard, she said, but by the time she moved in there were houses there instead.

She has always been keen on acting and said: "I went to a boys' school, so I was in everything because there were only a few girls."

She progressed her drama career through RADA and then Oxford University and several appearances at the Edinburgh Festival.

She has worked extensively in theatres across the country, including another Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, at Malvern in 1996.

She has also appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, as Desdemona in Othello, the Jailor's daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen, Helena in The Rover and Queen Isabelle in Richard II.

In this production of Three Sisters, she plays the part of Masha, one of the titular trio, who are marooned in a provincial Russian backwater and dreaming of an escape to Moscow, when one day something happens to change their lives.

Directed by Patrick Sandford, the play has a stellar cast including Dulcie Gray, Gareth Thomas (Blake in Blake's 7) and Serena Gordon.

"It is actually very funny," Imogen said of the 2hrs 20mins production.

She added: "I think it is a lovely company of actors - and very young." She hailed some of the younger cast, including newcomer Naomi Fredrick as actors who could become big success stories. "Audiences will be seeing someone who will go on to be a real star."

She added: "I'm used to being in a cast of already well-known people but Serena and I call ourselves the wrinklies."

So far the production, which certainly does not have a multi-million pound budget, has garnered rave reviews and she said: "The show has beautiful design, which is done for pennies, but it doesn't really look like it. There's wonderful music. The lighting is beautiful and really exquisite and looks like it costs a lot of money but it was done by goodwill and a passion."

As for he own future, Imogen has recently started directing and is keen to do more of the travel writing she has shown herself to be a dab hand at - "I love travelling and the wilderness and the romance of unexplored places."

Three Sisters is on at Malvern Festival Theatre from Monday, May 13 to Saturday, May 18. Tickets, priced from £12 to £20, are available from the Box Office on 01684 892277.