The Scottish actor recreating paintings by female artists live on stage

Best-known for a role in 1980s TV series Grange Hill, Ms Wilson took up painting when she was pregnant with her daughter, Nina Conti, also a performer.

“It started when I was friends with Jan Morrison, who opened the Leith Gallery,” Ms Wilson said. “She had suggested for the opening that I would paint pictures in her gallery, she thought just the smell of the oil paint would attract visitors.

“It was at that point that I realised that I was more of an actress than a painter because people gathered round to watch and I found that I actually painted better when people were watching.”

The idea sparked a series of plays based on the lives of female painters, where Ms Wilson takes on the persona of the artist, while painting one of her works live on stage. She wrote a play based on the life of Glasgow Girl Bessie McNichol in 1997 and performed it in the Leith Gallery during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

“I’ve been searching out women painters with good stories ever since,” said Ms Wilson.

Now, Ms Wilson, who is married to actor Tom Conti, is set to perform her sixth “painter play” at this year’s Fringe, this time about the life of northern English “naive” painter Helen Bradley, who did not become known for her art until she was in her sixties.

She always contacts family members of the painter she plans to write about to get their blessing. She has previously performed as artists Tamara de Lempicka, Vanessa Bell, Beryl Cook and Angelica Kauffman.

“I managed to find Helen Bradley’s granddaughter through Ancestry.com and got in touch with her,” Ms Wilson said. “Fortunately, she thought it was a wonderful idea.”

Ms Wilson watched documentaries featuring Ms Bradley to understand her personality.

“She's a very, very chatty Lancashire lady, and I everything she says is funny,” she said.

“In the play, she's visiting an art club, so I can speak to the audience,” she said. “That's such a joy to be able to talk to the audience as if they're members of an art club who want to hear her story, I just come in chatting with a cup of tea.”

She has prepared 25 canvasses to bring to her performance - and will use one in each of her shows.

“They have to have the drawing on them and a dark background,” she said. “She was well known for having hundreds of people in the picture, but this one I'm doing one of her later works where there's just four figures.

“The audience can't see anything until each character emerges and I'm telling the story of the people as the characters come. But I have to paint like hell to get it done in an hour.”