The prisoner of Zenda, currently in rehearsal at Greenwich, marks a double first for sloe-eyed siren Leonie Mellinger. ‘I’ve never done a stage play at Christmas and I’ve never played a princess before,’ she says during a pause in the technical run. ‘I desperately wanted a fight but the princess doesn’t get to fight. I am very jealous of the boys.’

Anthony Hope’s swashbuckling novel reaches the stage in a new adaptation by Green-wich director Matthew Francis on Monday night (previewing now). The 32-year-old actress was inspired to engage in the mix of romance and high drama by watching Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

‘It had a great heroine. It made me want to do something similar. So it’s nice to play a feisty princess. I don’t want to shy away from the proper romantic princess. But that doesn’t mean she’s got to be wet. I don’t think there is anything wet about love.’

Previously known for her performances that combined a dangerous sexuality with a feminine toughness, popping up on television in The New Statesman and Small World, besides gracing the stages of Chichester Festival Theatre and the RSC, Mellinger will also be seen on television on Boxing Day in a feature-length episode of Lovejoy.

Recent publicity, however, has inclined towards her personal life. With the separation from her husband, Robin Askwith, who continues to live, work and sunbathe in Australia, Mellinger has fallen in love with Anthony Burton, one of the country’s leading criminal lawyers.

Beyond citing the usual reasons for the break-up – like the 9,000-mile distance between them and conflicting career interests – Mellinger discreetly refuses to be drawn deeper on her personal life. ‘Let’s just say it is jolly nice to be with someone who isn’t an actor.’