HARD to believe, listening to Don Warrington’s soft, mellifluous tones that he grew up in the North-East. But he assures me: “I can be Geordie when I want to.”

The Trinidad-born politician’s son arrived with his family in this country when he was four. “I grew up in the west end of Newcastle which is now a very troubled area, but that’s where we lived,”

he says, during a break from rehearsals for his directorial debut at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.

Acting was a secret ambition. “Acting was always there, it was always what I wanted to do,” he says. “I did a couple of things at school. I remember doing a Victorian melodrama which the vicar came to see and he was very complimentary. He said, ‘I thought you were really frightening’ so I thought I must be good if I can fool the local vicar.

“I spent most of my childhood waiting for the opportunity to do it. I didn’t know anything about stage schools. It was just a secret longing which I thought I could fulfill around the age of 16 or 17.”

With no experience of how to become an actor, he went to the local rep, the Flora Robson Playhouse, in Jesmond. “In my naivete I thought all you needed was ambition,” he recalls.

“I went in and said, ‘I want to be an actor’ and they looked at me and said, ‘yes…’. But they gave me a job as a student ASM (assistant stage manager) and I was probably the worst student ASM in the world.

“I came into contact with actors and began to get a sliver of what was going on. Then I went off to drama school.”

He doesn’t offer to demonstrate his Geordie accent, but has employed it on several occasions, including in the Mystery Plays, at London’s National Theatre, and the David Jason TV series, Diamond Geezer.

He’s appeared on stage in Newcastle several times, in a Sue Townsend play (the title of which neither of us are able to remember) and The Banana Box, the play on which the TV comedy hit Rising Damp was based.

That was the series that made his name. He was straight out of drama school when cast as Philip, the well-spoken lodger much berated by landlord Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter).

“It was a job that came along and it wasn’t a job I particularly wanted. We thought that it was well-written, but that was all and we came to it as professional actors really and just did it,” he says.

Rising Damp is still being shown, although more people probably recognise Warrington from Strictly Come Dancing.

“I suppose what is amazing about Strictly is how popular it is. I didn’t realise,” he says.

“It really engages people in ways that other things, a drama or a comedy, that you may do on television, just don’t.”

He also wakes up millions of people every weekday morning as the voice of the in-house greetings on Chris Evans’ Radio 2 breakfast show. He doesn’t listen.

“Somebody said would I do a favour for Chris Evans. I’ve never heard it, but people tell me it’s on quite a lot,” he says.

The play he’s directing, Rum And Coca Cola, is a reworking by Mustapha Matura of his play celebrating the art of calypso and human friendship, set on the beaches of Trinidad.

There hasn’t been an opportunity until now to direct, although he resists having a game plan because “plans don’t work in my view”.

DOES he enjoy directing as much as acting? “It’s a different kind of enjoyment, but so far I feel comfortable,”

he replies, not saying if he plans to do more.

What he has done is start a production company developing scripts for film and TV. The aim is to encourage young writers, second or third generation, from the Commonwealth.

“Culturally, this country has changed and I don’t think we see that reflected particularly.

The way to do that is through what’s produced, what comes out of this new culture – and that’s to do with the writing.

“We are developing some writers and seeing where we go. There are other people involved as well. It’s going on as I sit here.”

■ Rum And Coca Cola: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until April 3. Tickets 0113-213-7700