WEST End actress Sarah Moyle is making her tenth appearance with the Stephen Joseph Theatre company in Scarborough this winter but her latest turn in The Schoolmistress comes after a long hiatus.

“It’s been six years since I was last here,” says Sarah, who is playing teacher turned opera diva Miss Dyott, the schoolmistress of the title in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s 1886 court farce about a tryst between Victorian schoolgirls, gentlemen and a secretive prima donna.

“I spent a good time of that, about three years, in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, with runs at the Royal Court and the Apollo, and then we went to the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

“I played a council official, Linda Fawcett, who was trying to evict the lead character. Very business-like, very council-speak, very uptight, and completely different from my latest character.”

How would Sarah describe Miss Dyott?

“Although she’s uptight in the first half, she’s been moonlighting as an opera diva, as she had a long ambition to marry a gentleman, the Honourable Vere Queckett, but unfortunately he’s broke, bankrupt,” she says.

“So she has to moonlight in order to provide him with the lifestyle to which he’s accustomed, while also keeping the school going.”

Sarah last appeared at the SJT in Alan Ayckbourn’s hotel drama A Trip To Scarborough in December 2007, but her many performances there have lived on in the memory. “Very flatteringly, and this very rarely happens to me, I didn’t have to audition for Miss Dyott this time, and it’s very difficult to say ‘No’ when someone wants you to do a part,” she says.

“When I first read the play, it made me laugh out loud, which is always a good sign, and I didn’t have to think for a second before saying ‘Yes’.”

Besides, Sarah has what she calls “these inextricable bonds with Yorkshire”. “My dad was born in Boynton, near Driffield, so I’m half Yorkshire and it’s in the blood,” she says.

“I feel drawn back to Scarborough and I’ve fallen in love with it all over again.”

The Schoolmistress runs at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Saturday. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com