With a breakthrough role alongside Sir Kenneth Branagh in Wallander and a part in new sitcom Man Down, former Oxford student Jeany Spark is a rising star.

KATHERINE MACALISTER reports Nice bum,” was my opening line to Jeany Spark and there was a brief, icy pause before she howled with laughter and said: “Someone said that to me on the street yesterday and it took me a while to realise they were referring to the show.

“But it could have been worse. They could have said ‘donkey face’, so I’ve lucked out on the catchphrase front.”

The show, if you haven’t watched Man Down yet, is Greg Davies’ new Ch4 sitcom, in which Jeany Sparks plays the headteacher brilliantly. You’ll also recognise her from crime series Wallander in which she played Sir Kenneth Branagh’s daughter for three whole series.

Or maybe you glimpsed her peddling around Oxford when she was a student at St Margaret’s Hall, rushing between the theatre and her English lectures, debuting in The Clockwork Orange at the Old Fire Station while managing to get a first.

“Yes Oxford is where I realised I wanted to be an actress. “Until then it hadn’t occurred to me at all. So those three years put me on the pathway I am on now,” she tells me.

So what took her so long? “I auditioned for a play at school and they told me I was so bad I shouldn’t bother, so I didn’t. “And then one night we were coming home from the pub in Oxford a bit worse for wear and saw a poster asking students to come for auditions.” Jeany decided there and then to go.

The rest as they say is history because after Oxford, the 31-year-old auditioned for RADA, spent three years at the drama college and then landed Wallander. A second series of Man Down has just been commissioned and in between the two Jeany has also managed to squeeze in a medieval epic for a TV series by Fox network in the US based on Da Vinci.

Which leaves few stones unturned. So what’s next? Raunchy? “Oh, that would be terrible,” she says in horror. “Poor mum. No, but I’d love to do the voice on a cartoon although my biggest ambition is to star in a zombie film. That’s what I’m aiming for.”

In the meantime, you can catch Jeany for yourself, and a whole host of other stars at the MacMillan concert at Christ Church tomorrow night, a festive sharpener for Christmas. It will be her fifth year as a reader and a role she relishes as much as any TV part. “The MacMillan Christmas concert has always been the complete highlight of my year because the service is such a special and magical thing to be part of,” she tells me. “It’s a wonderful mix of poetry, songs, readings and carols and a joyful thing to do. So I look forward to it every year.”

The concert also cured Jeany’s stage fright because when she first left RADA she was cast in a show where she was crippled with nerves. “I thought I can’t do this if I feel this bad,” she remembers. “And then I had to come to Oxford and get up in front of 1,300 people and wasn’t sure I was up to it. But it’s such a lovely occasion and everyone is there to support Macmillan and attend for the best reasons so it’s the most sympathetic audience possible. And I was cured after that.”

Hard to imagine anyone so confident would struggle, especially as Jeany has been working ever since leaving RADA. “I got my break with Wallander and I’m under no illusions that I probably got the part because I looked more like Kenneth Branagh than any of the other girls, so it’s also about being in the right place at the right time, and I have been very lucky thus far. All you can do is keep going.”

Even so when she went for the part in Man Down, Jeany says she was the youngest potential headmistress at the auditions by a mile. “The others were all considerably older than me and much more stern looking. But then I remembered my deputy head teacher at school in St Albans who was ferocious and beautiful all at the same time, with a stare that could turn you to stone, and an iron will, meaning we feared and loathed her in equal measure. So I used her in the audition and it worked,” she laughs. Question is did she have a nice bum? “She did,” Jeany screams, “but she also had a great sense of humour.” Perfect casting then.

SEE IT The Celebration of Christmas Carol Concert is at Christ Church Cathedral tomorrow night to raise funds for MacMillan. Call 01865 305305 or see oxfordplayhouse.com/tickets oxford