Lola Aluko grins at the joke suggesting she may just turn up on stage wearing an 18th century English maiden’s bonnet - while appearing in a modern-day production set in an American Southwestern town. Or perhaps that frilly hat could even make an appearance in a New York recording studio in the Sixties. But the joke has a little element of truth to it.

To explain, the actor is currently rehearsing for roles in three productions being staged at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Aluko will play Marianne Dashwood in a new production of Sense and Sensibility, she is also lined up to appear as legendary American songwriter Cynthia Weil in the Carole King musical Beautiful and, just for good measure, there’s the role of Lulu in the iconic production Footloose, (in which teenagers remind the world they really should be allowed to dance.)

“I’m loving it,” says the Glasgow-based actor of her three roles. “But we have this mind messing schedule where we are working on one show and then we’ll leap over to the next for a couple of days - and back again.”

The former Conservatoire student grins: “And because I’m about to play three roles I have had to organise myself with three notebooks, to help me try and separate the characters in the three shows, just to keep me right.”

The added challenge in playing three key characters in rep theatre is connecting to the right accent at the right time. “I’ve found myself going a bit Southern, when I should be English,” Aluko admits with a wry smile. “And Lulu (Ren’s aunt – played in the movie by Kevin Bacon) who has lived in the southern town of Bomont for some time,) still has a hint of Chicago about her, which makes it trickier.”

And of course there is the added challenge of playing Cynthia Weil, who wrote the lyrics to the likes of You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ (the most played song of the 20th century) and Lookin’ Through the Eyes of Love. Weil has the sort of New York accent Sinatra would have sung about. “Yes, and she really is a firecracker, a woman who on the front foot, and given I’m playing a real person, there is an added responsibility.”

It’s rare for an actor to be charged with developing three very good roles at the same time but the responsibility underlines the talent Aluko is able to bring to the table. Did acting always feature in the career masterplan? “It’s been with me as long as I can remember.”

She smiles. “I remember growing up I’d force my family to watch me do little improvs, or I’d perform in front of my stuffed animals. I knew I just loved the freedom of being whoever I wanted to be.”

Lola Aluko, who has also studied TV production, was born in Nigeria and moved to England (Burnley) with her parents when she was five. And a few years later discovered she was on the road again, with a move to Livingston. (Her dad studied for a Masters degree in Scotland.)

Has this movement perhaps helped as an actor? With accents? “Yes, I think it has shaped me in different ways,” she reflects. “When you move somewhere new you have to suddenly become engulfed in that world (like acting). For example, everyone in Scotland has been lovely to me, although I was sad to leave my friends behind in Burnley. But this experience is an emotion I guess I can draw upon when playing Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, whose family also has to move on.”

What Aluko’s casting suggests is that Scotland has made great strides in taking a colour-blind approach? “Yes, absolutely. And it’s been long overdue. For most of my life I assumed that these sorts of roles were just not attainable for me. Although I would add that there is still some way to go. But this isn’t just about me. It means the precedent is changing.”

With three new roles to be performed, does she have a favourite? “Ooh, what a tough question,” she says smiling. “I really love the challenge of each of the parts, and the compartmentalising of my brain. But I’m most excited, I guess, to be playing Cynthia, if only because she’s so far away from me, with her upfront direct New York outlook. In the UK we are so much more reserved. But now I get to be out there, and that is so much fun to play with.”

Footloose, May 31 – September 26. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, June 7 – September 28. And Frances Poet’s new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility runs from June 21 – September 27, all at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Don’t Miss:

Francie & Josie: Pure Neuralgia. No, Rikki Fulton and Jack Milroy have not descended from the celestial heavens for one last stage appearance, but for large sections of this show you may well think this to be the case. Instead, Liam Dolan and Johnny Mac will reprieve the tenement laughs which had Scotland in stitches. The Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, June 15.