PATRICIA Hodge has done plenty in a distinguished, Olivier Award-winning career on stage and screen but never performed in York.

She will rectify that when the first revival since 1987 of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s 19th century horse-racing comedy Dandy Dick visits the Grand Opera House from August 13 to 18, as chance would have it a week before the Ebor Festival meeting.

“What’s lovely is to find a cracking play that’s not over-produced,” says Patricia, who is starring in the Theatre Royal Brighton touring production from later this month, before it heads into town for a London season.

The play was written 125 years ago in Brighton, where its racing scenes are set, and so Patricia, co-star Nicholas Le Prevost and fellow cast members gathered at Brighton Racecourse on a baking-hot race day in May to launch director Christopher Luscombe’s new adaptation.

“In his day, Pinero was more celebrated than Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw and was only the second ever person to be knighted purely for theatre services, but he’s not had enduring fame,” says Patricia.

Pinero’s gilded use of language marks him out, suggests Patricia. “His language is a lovely tool for us as actors and also for the audience. It’s more stimulating than the way we speak now, and definitely more rewarding for actors.”

Patricia has been offered roles in Pinero plays previously, but “couldn’t do them, though it wasn’t that I didn’t want to”.

So the part of Georgiana forms her Pinero debut after a career spanning such films as Betrayal and Behind Enemy Lines, stage roles in Noises Off and Calendar Girls and a BAFTA nomination for Hotel du Lac.

Pinero’s humorous tale recounts how the Very Reverend Augustin Jedd goes from pillar of Victorian respectability to desperate betting man, despite having preached regularly against the evils of horseracing and gambling. A visit from his tearaway sister, Patricia’s Georgiana, leads him to risk all at the races, much against his better judgement. Mayhem ensues, with romantic intrigue, mistaken identity and a runaway horse.

“It would be completely wrong to describe it as a farce; it’s a farcical comedy,” says Patricia. “A farce depends on situations and physical near-misses. This is a caper.”

As for her impression of Georgian’s character, only a day into rehearsals when this interview was conducted, she is very well drawn, surmises Patricia.

“She’s surprising, which is lovely, and she’s full of heart – and you want a warm heart, don’t you?” she says.

Having been part of the original 22-week tour of Calendar Girls, Patricia speaks from fond experience when she says: “I think some of the most rewarding audiences are in the provinces, whereas in London there’s something in the ether that theatre is too readily available. The other thing I enjoy is the way something is received varies from place to place around the country.”

When choosing whether to go on the road, Patricia puts more emphasis on the play and not her potential role.

“I think it’s got to be a great project to go on tour and of course what the play is really matters,” she says. “I’m driven more by the play than the role, as long as I can see what the play is driving at.”

Patricia is 65, trim and pucker as ever, but she is of an age when actresses face a familiar problem. “There aren’t enough roles for older women,” she says. “That’s why Calendar Girls has been such a phenomenon. People come up afterwards, hold your hand and say, ‘That’s my story you’re telling’.”

For all the perceived dearth of female roles, Patricia has maintained a busy diary. “Of course I don’t get as many roles as I did 20 years ago, but I’ve done plenty of Fay Weldon and Antonia Fraser works on television,” she says.

“Though I wouldn’t want to do a role that was written specially for a woman to play, fortunately playwrights like Harold Pinter and Pinero wrote plays with wonderful stage roles for women.”

Betting is not one of her own traits. Although she remembers being taken to racecourses when growing up in Lincolnshire, she has never put money on horses. “Apart from buying the odd lottery ticket, I think I better keep away from betting,” says Patricia. “Acting is enough.”

• Dandy Dick will run at the Grand Opera House, York, from August 13 to 18, at 7.30pm plus Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york

The Ebor Festival meeting will the summer highlight of the Yorkshire racing calendar from August 22 to 25.