WHEN Rula Lenska found out that she was going to be appearing in Barbara Taylor Bradford's play Dangerous To Know at the Theatre Royal in Windsor, she couldn't have been happier.

Not only did she feel privileged to be in the best-selling novelist's first ever stage play, but she was glad to be back near her beloved Buckinghamshire, an area she grew to love when she lived in Wooburn Common with Dennis Waterman.

After the break up of their marriage a couple of years ago, Rula and Dennis sold their Bucks home. She went to live in London but yearns to be back in Bucks.

Rula says: "I miss the space, I miss the country life, I miss my neighbours and being surrounded by greenery.

"It was a strange feeling moving back to London. I had lived in Buckinghamshire for 16 years."

Rula stars with Michael Praed, Lana Morris and Peter Byrne in Barbara Taylor Bradford's murder mystery which deals with the inexplicable murder of a philanthropic millionaire.

Rula plays American journalist Vivienne Trent, who was an orphan but then marries a millionaire Cyrus Locke (Peter Byrne). He is much older than her and their marriage ends in divorce but the couple stay close. The play opens when Cyrus is killed.

"My character is hell-bent on finding out about what had happened," says Rula.

Vivienne's determination in trying to get the facts sorted out sounds a little bit like Rula.

"I am someone who likes to know the truth and I will fight until I find out. I am like that with many things, including relationships. From that point a view I am like her."

Like Vivienne, Rula has been finding out information about her own family, who came from Poland.

"I am of Polish background, Polish heritage and I feel those roots more and more strongly. I go back there quite a lot. Two years ago my parents died and I went back to lay their ashes. I have a longing for belonging and I have discovered a lot about my family."

Just as there is a part of Rula like Vivienne, there's is another side of her character which is the opposite.

"I have never been extremely rich and I have never had the amazing riches that go with the character. I have never been in that sort of situation."

And she plays an American. A role she has taken on a lot recently, but she admits she has no inclination towards that country at all.

"I feel very European, I don't even think of myself as English."

It's not just apearing in Dangerous To Know that Rula is looking forward to, she also has a soft spot for the Theatre Royal. It was the first theatre she worked in after leaving Webber Douglas Drama School. She played Ruth in Suddenly At Home, with Gerald Harper and the young Penelope Keith, which transferred to the West End.

"It certainly got me going. I was very lucky to be with such great actors."

Rula has been back to the Theatre Royal in touring productions but she has not been in a play that started out at the Theatre Royal since then.

Rula made her break into television in Rock Follies. Since then she appeared with Dennis Waterman in Minder and Stay Lucky and has starred in Fay Weldon's Watching Me Watching You, Conversation with a Stranger and Morgan of Ravenscar.

She made her film debut with Peter Sellers in Soft Beds, Hard Battles and went on to appear in Alfie Darling.

And she has done a host of recordings for documentaries and radio programmes.

It was while she was working on one of the documentaries that she became aware of the plight of elephants and dolphins in the wild.

"I was doing the narration on a documentary about Daphne Scheldrck, who runs an elephant sanctuary.

After Rula narrated the story, Daphne invited her to stay on her ranch in Africa.

"I saw for the first time and at first hand the trauma these extraordinary creatures go through when they are herded in Africa."

That prompted her to join the Born Free Foundation and then Friends of the Earth.

The more Rula became involved, the more she wanted to do for the wild animals.

"It became more and more on hand. I went out there and saw for myself."

She joined John Blashford-Snell's expedition to find two giant elephants in an ex-hunting reserve in Nepal, believing they might be the living link between elephants of the past and today's elephants.

They lived in the jungle for two weeks watching the elephants and brought back elephant dung for DNA testing.

"But it didn't turn out to be what we hoped for."

Together they wrote a book, Mammoth Hunt, about the expedition.

"I am a conservationist. It is a great passion, I do a lot of travelling and I'm keen on saving animals in the wild. I will do anything I can. It is impossible to reverse the situation, but to try to ascertain what is left, so that it is left in peace."

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