You can’t get away from the sex or nudity in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the new world premiere coming to Oxford Playhouse next week hasn’t shied away from it either.

“Yes physically certain things can happen as a moment approaches,” Jonah Russell, who plays gardener Mellors, laughs.

“But I’m from Nottingham and DH Lawrence is one of our heroes, so it will be nice to play the part of Mellors properly, not just as a generic Northerner like everyone else does, because I know the place, I know the man and the chance to do that overrode any trepidation I might have.”

The classic DH Lawrence story of a frustrated wife whose wheel-chair bound husband is left mentally and physically damaged by WWI, and strays into the gardener’s arms is well known, being banned until 1960 in an infamous court case..

And yet, for some it’s still shocking now. “Yes, but at least that’s not a surprise. Everyone who comes to see it will know what happens – there won’t be anyone at the end saying “well I never! That was scandalous!” Jonah laughs again.

“But my first question when I got the part was ‘who is playing Lady C?’ because I had to make sure we were on the same page.”

To make sure that you had chemistry? I asked. “No because that is written into the script, but it is an exposing play in every way, so I had to make sure that Lady Chatterley was someone I could work with, a partner, because we needed to be sure and to trust each other, before I knew whether it would work.

“So I was quite nervous about meeting Hedydd Dylan who plays Lady Chatterley actually because we have so many scenes together because it has to be about what’s going on between the two of us rather than worrying about what the audience thinks.

“For something like this you have to be on the same page.”

I have been naked on stage before though in The Mikvah Project which was set in a cleansing pool, but this is a much bigger deal, but I was instantly interested in finding out how it would work.

It gets to the point where it’s just like going to the changing rooms and taking off your clothes, the same mind set, in that it’s quite an unusual scenario to be undressing in front of a bunch of strangers, but an accepted one.

And not to get naked in a play like this, to avoid it, would be ridiculous, because it’s not salacious or explicit, the sex is about tenderness between two human beings and the awkwardness and intimacy associated with the first time, breaking through all class barriers to who they are onto the same level.

Of course the passionate angle might interest certain people more than others and that might be why they buy tickets, but then you rarely get to see it on stage.

“I don’t like seeing people taking their clothes off on stage, but we are not trying to shock or sensationalise anything at all, they are bodies and they are beautiful part of who we are.”

“And Lawrence was unafraid of emotion. So it will be interesting to see how this goes down with a more Southern Audience (it opened in Sheffield), whether it still resonated with them. It’s a great challenge. But I can only bring what I bring to it.

Jonah, now 43, says that if it wasn’t for his school drama teacher, who told him he had real talent and should go to drama school, he would have become a PE teacher as planned. “I didn’t even know you could make a career out of acting, that there was such a thing as drama college and I’ve been blagging it ever since.”

Very well, judging by the rave reviews so far for Lady Chatterley’s Lover which has gone down a storm. So does Jonah notice the audience reaction? “The A Level students have giggled a bit except during the sex stuff which bis quite reassuring,” he laughs. And we have had some great post-show talks where he audience always ask about the staging, rather than the passion.

“But there have been a few lovely little gasps and “ooh well”’s but the audiences have been brilliant on the whole.”

Lady Chatterley's Lover, Oxford Playhouse, October 18-22