Last year Moscow's Oleg Menshikov was Isadora Duncan's poet lover. This year he returns as a gambler - and he admits the stakes are much higher.
When Oleg Menshikov finished his award-winning run opposite Vanessa Redgrave in "When She Danced" last year he went back to Moscow knowing there was a hit play to return to and a film awaiting him. "I felt very safe. I had lots of offers of work and I knew what would probably happen to me for the next few years".
That was until a small bundle of Lithuanian energy called Dalia Ibelhauptaite nobbled him and invited him to return to London, this time as an English-speaking actor. Menshikov's role as Isadora Duncan's poet lover in "When She Danced" had been conducted entirely in Russian. The actor had to square up to the challenge of going on stage in a language not his own.
A good-looking, dark-haired young man, with flashing eyes and a strong physical presence, he laughed at the memory of how the shock sank in. "Suddenly, I had another whole new big experience thrown in front of me, something I've never done and never expected to do. I did not feel safe any more but I liked that. I was excited to see what would happen".
Dalia, a director who has rapidly made a reputation for herself working round the Gate, the NT Studio and Riverside Studios in the past year, wanted him to lead a production of Gogol's "Gamblers" at Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre opening on 7 September, which will also star Mark Rylance.
Menshikov arrived last month and enrolled for a crash course in English at Berlitz, which thus far has been only partly successful but he's still working at it.
He has installed himself in a mansion flat in Notting Hill where MOR music pours off the hi-fi, the furniture is sparse and a cigarette is constantly in his hand. The start of rehearsals is just 10 days away.
In Gogol's play, he is a professional gambler who falls among a mundane group of cardsharps who are out to fleece him. He knew and admired the play of old from his days as a rising actor in Moscow and now sees a new appeal from his current circumstances.
"I like the idea of a play with a title about gambling because that is what we are doing. I always choose work which is similar to myself and my world, how I feel at the moment. I don't do it just to be working. Being on stage for me is like an extension of my life. It has to feel right".
"In the play, the gambler thinks he leads the game but it is the game which actually leads him. It is the same in life. We think we are individuals who control our own lives but then a situation comes up which changes everything and takes us a different way".
The parallels in his professional life and the events which have overtaken his country in the past six years are obvious. He smiled. "It might sound mystical but I believe there is someone who controls what happens to us, even what happens to the politicians. Yes, you can say I believe in Fate".
Menshikov is 31 and still single, though he attracted a large female following from his romantic West End performance last year. "There are girlfriends but they change. That is life. It is normal".
The prospect of him continuing an English-speaking career in the West is unlikely immediately as his own card is already marked for his return to Moscow. The new freedom there is making plays available which would not have been staged in the past. He has just played Caligula in the Camus version and will return to star in a new play about Nijinsky.
He still remembers the shock of how Vanessa and her gang arrived in Moscow and shanghai'd him for his London debut. "It happened so fast. I did not believe a word when they asked me to go to London. I did not think it was possible. Three weeks later I was rehearsing in England".
"I had to adjust very fast to a new environment but that is OK. I knew there would be problems, I had some fear but the company were wonderful to me. Now I have come back for another new experience, a different kind of a gamble".

Submitted by Sanochki