Nell Barlow makes her Chichester Festival Theatre debut in 4000 Miles

For Nell, to be directed by Richard Eyre and to share the stage with Eileen Atkins is a dream come true: “It is just unbelievable. I was walking here on my way to this meeting wearing my Chichester lanyard and I couldn't believe that I'm going to be doing this play. I've wanted to work with these people and I've got to do it and the fantastic thing is that they're both so sweet and kind and generous and when you hear the stories that they tell and when you hear the way, they talk to each other, they are just so normal. And they are both so lovely to work with.”

In the play, late one night, 21-year-old Leo arrives without warning at his grandmother’s Manhattan apartment – the furthest point on a momentous bike ride across America. Vera is 91 and lives alone, independence undimmed by the challenges of modern living. Baffled by each other at first, this odd couple slowly edge across the distance between them.

Nell is playing Leo’s girlfriend Bec: “I did know the play before and it's a really beautiful play. I think it's the perfect play. It is something you just wish that you'd written yourself and what we were saying in rehearsals the other day was that it seems so beautifully simple but the more you look at it, the more it appears really complex. The more you look at the play the more detail you see and the more things open up. It's like looking a painting really hard, and the harder you look at it, the more details you see. It is just such a beautiful piece.”

Nell, whose theatre includes Rivka in One Night of Joseph Kaufman (Theatre Royal Haymarket) and Katherine Howard in Six Wives (Historic Royal Palaces), added: “Bec is a really interesting part. There is one man and three women in the piece, and my interpretation of the piece is that just as Leo travels 4,000 miles, there are 4,000 miles between the characters. It is a coming of age story for Leo but I do think he and Bec heal each other.

"The women in the play are all such great characters and they give Leo a push into something. I just love Bec and I just love all the characters. But Bec is great. She is constantly changing but at her core she is a really good person. But she just has these vulnerabilities. She's bubbly and emotional and very passionate. She is 21 and she is annoying! She and Leo are both 21 and you get the feeling they just come from different worlds with a totally different ethos.

"When they see Vera, it is like they are saying that the sky is green, and for them it really is. It's such a different world but really the play is about tolerance and that’s what makes it such a great play.”

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