Upstairs and downstairs roles are all in a day’s work for Luke Kempner, as he tells Katherine MacAlister ahead of The Only Way Is Downton

Downton Abbey will never be the same again once you’ve heard Luke Kempner’s brilliant and hilarious impressions of the prime time ITV show. The nation agrees, with a tour and West End show of The Only Way Is Downton already booked. And yet its humble beginnings, Luke’s way of keeping the cast amused between musicals, almost didn’t come to fruition at all.

“I’ve been in musical theatre since I left drama school,” Luke tells me, “Les Misérables, Avenue Q and South Pacific, which came to Oxford, and in between I would do my impressions, which everyone always loved and told me I should do something with. I’ve always done them; at school, at drama college, at home, taking the mickey out of the teachers, over Christmas, any chance I got actually,” he realises.

But Luke knew there was a massive jump between acting the class fool and making a career out of it, especially as he already had a lucrative job in musical theatre. And yet the itch wouldn’t go away, so Luke finally sat down and scripted a piece Downstairs at Downton which he then put on YouTube.

“I researched impressions and realised they needed to be updated, that I needed to come up with something that hadn’t been done before. It needed to be current, not impersonations of Borat or Vicky Pollard. I wanted to stay away from comedy characters invented by someone else. And I wanted a story, a narrative for the characters, so I concentrated on shows like The X Factor, I’m A Celebrity, Pointless, The Great British Bake Off, and of course Downton.”

The YouTube video went viral and Luke knew he had a hit on his hands. Even so, giving up the day job to sit down and actually write a new script long enough for a 90-minute show was still an enormous gamble.

“Well you’ve still got to pay the bills,” he says on the eve of his show at the Oxford Playhouse. “And I’m glad The Only Way is Downton is about to start because my savings are running out. But I also knew it was something I had to do.”

It looks like it’s paid off though, and will be a wonderfully refreshing way to start the New Year, especially after the excitement of the Downton Christmas special. So why Downton? “I could do all the characters and there’s a wonderful variety of accents, regions and classes, a real social divide to play with.”

Even so, when Luke, 26, took the finished result up to the Edinburgh Fringe last year he wasn’t expecting great shakes, and yet ended up being the talk of the town. “We put the show on in what was little more than a shipping container, but we totally sold out and had to hire a bigger venue and extend the shows,” he says in amazement.

Off the back of that came the tour, with the West End’s Trafalgar Studios tagged on the end. Currently rehearsing the final edit, Luke says he’s “scared but confident” and having played in some massive venues with shows like Les Mis all his training is now paying off. “Going solo means you can never relax on stage. You can’t have a breather while it’s someone else’s song. It’s you for an hour and 20 minutes. But then being an actor means you are a natural show off and I get to show off for the whole show,” he laughs.

And the key? “Impressions only work if the material is strong enough. And while people always laugh at impersonations if they recognise them, to get the second laugh there needs to be something else, a storyline, a joke, something for them to hold onto.

“So you have to over egg what you do, and as Downton is so current it appeals to people from 18-80 because they all know what I’m talking about. So The Only Way is Downton is more like a funny play.”

As for the skill itself, is it something that comes naturally? “Impersonations are like a puzzle, sometimes you get them straight away, like Bruno Tonioli who says ‘mantan’ not ‘maintain’, while others take much longer to get to the bottom of like Mel and Sue, but it’s much more rewarding when you do get them.”

Luke hopes this is the beginning of a “new wave” of impressions and is aiming right for the top. “I’d love to do something on TV. I think The Only Way is Downton would work really well in a slightly different sketch-based format. So the dream is to work in bigger and bigger venues, but for now it’s babysteps all the way because I’m making a career out of my party piece. And while I knew there would be a way of doing it, YouTube made me realise it was possible.”

The Only Way is Downton comes to the Oxford Playhouse on Saturday January 18. Box office on 01865 305305. www.oxfordplayhouse.com