Clean fun

Preparations are under way for the party, but Lionel is missing one vital ingredient - a mystery guest. In view of Josie's profession, a male stripper would hardly be an excitement. So Lionel decides on a Chinese Elvis impersonator - a risk indeed, as Elvis impersonators can be good, bad, or merely indifferent.

As the first number booms out, it becomes evident that this Elvis relies heavily on the physical, pelvic thrust part of the King's style, for he has yet to fully master the vocal technique. All of which must be quite difficult for Paul Courtenay Hyu, who plays Elvis, as in real life he is actually an extremely accomplished and experienced Elvis impersonator.

"I started quite soon after my voice had dropped," Paul told me. "I was always a fan, but on the Richter scale of Elvis fandom, I was only at a medium level. I have yet to make the pilgrimage to Graceland, for instance, even though I've now been an Elvis for seven years."

As the Chinese Elvis's turn at Josie's party becomes ever more disastrous, he admits that he once died a death when performing at a Northern club. Confession time: has this ever happened to Paul in real life?

"Yes it has," he replied cheerfully. "It's a culturally interesting point actually: my personal act, Paul's act, is based on comedy, whereas the Elvis in the play is unintentionally funny. But I have died the most hideous of deaths - I just end up corpsing because my act is going down so badly. I did the Bank of China, at the Chinese New Year in 2003 - literally, 400 Chinese guys in suits. They hated me. It was quite some baptism. So I think I've earned my stripes. In a Northern club, you know they don't like you, because they tell you so in no uncertain terms. The Chinese, they don't even acknowledge your presence, they won't even look at you."

Heading the cast of Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis is Maureen Lipman, who plays Martha, Josie's obsessive-compulsive Irish cleaner. As she arrives each morning, Martha must open and shut the front door a certain number of times. Once inside, she must count out the number of paces to the coffee table, then check the distance again.

"I've been in the business 40 years next year," Maureen reveals, "and this part is something new for me. I've done Irish before, but I've never played this sort of character. So I thought it would be another chance for the critics to say how miscast I am, playing an Irish Catholic. The critic Milton Shulman once wrote: Maureen Lipman playing an Irish Catholic is like Barbra Streisand playing Mother Teresa!'"

Did Martha's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder character involve research?

"I watched a couple of movies: As Good as It Gets, and Matchstick Men, with Nicolas Cage. That was the one that spoke to me the most, because he does the door thing as well. Very often OCD people have a thing about doors. My mother had a touch of OCD, going back four times to check that the oven was off. She was very superstitious.

"And I, when I was young, had a thing which my family used to call last tap', which went on for a few years, it was probably a puberty thing. I couldn't bear it if anyone touched me, I had to touch them back last. Also, I couldn't bear it if anyone said hmmm', I had to say hmmm' over the top of them.

"My mother used to tap her teeth when she was on the phone. I couldn't bear that either. Whistling drove me insane, I always had to drown it out. My brother used to whistle on purpose, of course. I didn't know how to say to him: Look, I don't like this, I can't help it, whistling actually hurts me'."

At the end of Josie's birthday party, the proceedings explode into a riot of dancing, featuring Maureen Lipman in a positively drop-dead gorgeous flamenco dress. The dance choreography has been prepared under the miss-nothing eye of Craig Revel Horwood, famous as a stern judge on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. Craig, who turns out to be a great deal less fearsome in real life, reveals that he encountered one small problem with Maureen Lipman during rehearsals.

"I just can't count," Maureen laughs, "I'm totally and utterly innumerate. When I worked with the choreographer Susan Strohman on Oklahoma! she despaired of me. I can get the dance steps and after we've been on the road with this show for about three weeks, I'll be counting fine, I'll be counting under my breath."

But did Maureen Lipman have to count when she appeared on BBC's Comic Relief Does The Apprentice last week? She certainly looked apprehensive as she was summoned into the presence of Sir Alan Sugar with the dreaded words: "You can go through to the boardroom now". In the event, it was probably just as well she can't count: her allotted task was to assemble 400 chicken satays on sticks.

"I think the elite are doing the elite tasks, as ever," she remarked with feeling.

After that appearance, small accidents on stage must be a piece of cake. But it's always fun to see how an actor copes when something goes wrong. At the performance of Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis I saw, Maureen's character, ever-so-conscientious cleaner Martha was fiddling with some bottles on a cocktail trolley and accidentally sent them flying across the carpet she had just vacuumed.

"Emily Aston, who plays Josie's daughter and I ended up laughing," Maureen confirmed after the show. "But it's not a place in the play where you should be laughing. It's just about to be revealed that the place is a brothel. The great thing about that sort of corpse on stage is that the audience knows why we're laughing. Then it's a great big, happy relief for us, and they love it. But we did have to get control of ourselves for the next bit, because it is very dramatic."

Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis is at the Oxford Playhouse from next Monday until Saturday, March 31. For tickets call 01865 305305 or visit the website www.oxfordplayhouse.com