THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF PLAYING LADY ROSAMUND IN DOWNTON

After the runaway success of Downton

Abbey, life grew a trifle complicated for Samantha.

Because Lady Rosamund was known as a featured cameo — “She appears at the very end of series 1, then she sort of popped in and out of series two, three and four ....... and because they would never commit,” she says, “for series two, three and four, and possibly five” of ITV’s historical period drama during the years from 2010 to 2015, Samantha had already accepted several roles on various West End stages in London.

After all, she’s an actor — and actors have to act.

“There were many, many nights when I would play my show,” Samantha says, referring to the live theatre she appeared in during that time — variously, Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw, Passion Play or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels — “Then I would climb in the back of a [chauffeur-driven] car with a miniature bottle of white wine and a sandwich and a pillow.

“I would sit and eat and look at the lines for the following morning on Downton Abbey. Then we’d have to stop at Reading Services because you’d need to wee.”

At that most... indelicate of words, Samantha Bond lowers her mouth and whispers into my recorder: “Sorry.”

“Then, you would try unsuccessfully to sleep in the back of the car. You’d arrive at the hotel in the middle of nowhere in complete darkness at midnight and creep along the floorboards quietly — as you knew that your colleagues were all sleeping.

“You’d reach your room and then set your alarm clock for 6am for Downton.

“I would then film until 4pm, at which point I would climb into another car with another pillow and try to get a little bit of kip before getting back up to the theatre for 6pm.

“I did that for about three or four years. It was only on series 6 that they put me on a contract.”