NICK Asbury, whose theatrical life began in Hereford, has recently joined the cast of the hit West End show, Shakespeare in Love at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Having been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and part of the groundbreaking ‘crazy, wonderful project’ that was the staging of Shakespeare’s epic history cycle, it looks as if his career is inextricably linked with the Bard. Especially when you add in the two books he wrote as a result of the Histories project.

"It seems the harder I pull away the tighter he holds on," he says.

The first of his books, Exit Pursued by a Badger, was a collection of the blog entries he wrote while being part of the xx year long undertaking, and the second, White Hart Red Lion also grew out of that experience. As he writes in the preface: “I began to find resonsances that seemed to chime with my own experience. Scenes took place in locations that I knew ... but famous events roared by with the hazy familiarity of a schoolboy’s knowledge. Talking to the cast, crew and audience I could sense the same. On some level these Histories touched us all.”

His response was to go on a journey “to find out why they seemed to touch something within us – what is the England that now watches these plays”, the results of which became the second book.

He is now, he reveals, working on a novel, but William Shakespeare doesn't put in an appearance. "But it's set in 1651, 40 years after his death and some of his actors are in it. But that's all I can reveal."

Nick adds that appearing on stage eight times a week is slowing the novel down, but is thoroughly enjoying playing the baddie in Shakespeare in Love. "Apart from my character and Viola Lesseps, everyone in it is real. It's really fun to perform as it comes from the school of ensemble theatre, of which Cheek by Jowl have been at the cutting edge for the past 35 years.

"We tell the story through fast and funny action and words straight from the film but we also tell it as a love song to theatre itself so so we tell it through all the techniqes that theatre employs. All the actors sing at certain points and there are four musicians. It's a piece that uses the full gamut of theatrical experience. The script takes all of the film and adds another 15 per cent that's all about theatre and what it means.

"Strangley," says Nick "I worked in this theatre back in 2002 (playing two minor roles) in Macbeth with Sean Bean.

Nick was just seven years old when he first took to the stage with The Wye Players in Hereford, of which is parents were enthusiastic members, and experienced the thrill of connecting with an audience.

“I was cast as the man who walks across the stage, so I whacked a jumper up my waistcoat to do it and made the audience laugh. That was the moment I realised I could do this standing on stage business.”

Last year Nick was seen as Winston Churchill in xxxxxx and had one line in Sherlock - "I spent a day with Benedict Cuberbatch being sick on my foot," he says ruefully, and next year will be on screen again in A Song for Jenny, a BBC film based on the book of the same name by Rev Julia Nicholson who lost her daugther in the 7/7 bombings. "It was heartbreaking. Spent a lot of time crying."

Nick joined the cast of Shakespeare in Love two weeks ago, and it is currently booking until April, and playing to packed houses. "I saw it and loved it and now I'm one of the leads in a West End Show. "My old man would have liked that."