Arlene is going further than most

Inspired by the true story of Tristan da Cunha, a British-owned island bang in the middle of the Atlantic whose inhabitants were evacuated to England after a volcano erupted in the Sixties, Zinnie Harris's new play Further Than The Furthest Thing has rightly won rave reviews during summer runs in Edinburgh and Glasgow. But what London audiences will find equally impressive is another stand-out performance from 23-year-old Edinburgh-born actress Arlene Cockburn.

It is a typically unusual choice of play for Cockburn, who first hit the big time in 1995 when she made her stage debut at the Almeida in The Winter Guest, directed by Alan Rickman. Since then, Cockburn has starred at the National Theatre in The Prince's Play (directed by Richard Eyre), re-created her role in Rickman's cult movie version of The Winter Guest (where she acted Emma Thompson off the screen), and has also gone on to star in the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's surreal The Acid House, where she played the girlfriend of a man whose mind is transferred into the body of a new-born baby after he takes a particularly strong tab of acid!

'I was also filming a film called The Governess at the same time,' laughs Cockburn. 'And I remember being on the set of The Governess, no make-up, greasy hair, corsets, looking awful, then flying up to Glasgow for The Acid House and having to put on all this make-up and little short skirts. Madness. But that's probably why I do it.'

Not bad going for a woman who comes from a family with no theatrical background, who left school at 17 and never completed drama school, because, well, she was already too busy with acting roles. Of course, given human nature, many other aspiring actresses out there will be turning green with envy at Cockburn's precocious achievements - not to mention that she can call someone of Alan Rickman's stature 'a good friend' and 'a superb director who can draw the best out of you because he is very calming, he doesn't put pressure on you but has a way of knowing what he wants and of getting it out of you.'

Cockburn does admit, though, that she's 'had periods where I haven't been working and it is hell'. Still, it is a measure of how far she has come in such a short time that she can already say, 'I feel if I gave up acting tomorrow I could because I've done really brilliant stuff.' And she's right.