Game Of Thrones star Ian McElhinney is busier in his sixties than ever. He tells Katherine MacAlister about the hit series and directing his wife Marie’s play Stones In His Pockets arriving in Oxford

Ian McElhinney proves determinedly elusive, and so we begin a global chase that takes us from Iceland and Spain to Croatia and back until he finally comes home to Belfast and I nab him.

But, considering he’s in the middle of filming Sky’s global blockbuster Game Of Thrones (a cross between Lord Of The Rings and Reservoir Dogs) as well as starring concurrently in BBC1’s Ripper Street, it’s hardly surprising.

How he will, therefore, find the time to direct his wife’s award-winning play Stones In His Pockets remains to be seen, but as it’s coming to the New Theatre I finally lasso him for long enough to have a conversation.

Actors wondering if their star will ever rise should take heart from Ian McElhinney’s story, because aged 66 he can scarcely cope with his workload. He has never been in such demand, despite having been typecast for most of his career. “Yes I’ve done a bit of travelling of late,” he says in his wonderful Irish accent.

“We were in rehearsals for Stones In His Pockets as well as filming Game Of Thrones and Ripper Street, in parallel with each other, so I went a bit mad. There has been lots of to-ing and fro-ing and, although Croatia is beautiful, wearing armour in that heat with all that sand...”

Luckily, the main Game Of Thrones studios are in Belfast, so Ian just walks down the road from his family home to work, but what started out as a fledgling series is now “a well-oiled machine, like a juggernaut planned meticulously in advance. It has to be; there are 300 characters in Game of Thrones and so many people involved in the storyline, seven or eight going on at the same time, which all need to be kept on the boil.”

So is he kept in the loop? “No, each season you think ‘will my character survive or not?’ because nobody knows . The plot is a closely guarded secret and is always full of surprises.

“That’s its strength — you never know what to expect.”

Quite gratuitous too? “That’s part of its appeal,” he says chuckling. “That ability to shock is what we enjoy. Look at Sean Bean, the archetypal hero, who has his head cut off, out of the blue. Anything can happen.”

Another major pull is these new roles are light years away from his previous parts, usually based on the troubles in Northern Ireland. “I know, Barristan Selmy is a knight and as indomitable as you can get while in Ripper Street I play an American businessman Theodore Swift who is the complete opposite, a total criminal with no moral compass” Ian chuckles in delight.

And yet despite the global viewing figures of Game Of Thrones, the stage is still a massive pull, and buried beneath the gleaming armour, sex and violence of ancient Westeros, and the dirty streets of Victorian London is Ian’s other project, Stones In His Pockets, the award winning West End and Broadway triumph written by his wife Marie Jones, which he directs.

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Partnership: Marie Jones

Coming to Oxford’s New Theatre this week, an enormous feat in itself for a play, Ian has never lost his love of greasepaint. “Filming demystifies everything so you never get that sense of being in front of an audience. Take a good fight scene, you have stuntmen, fake blood and then you redo the scene over and over again. It’s a very technical process. But theatre is so immediate, happening right in front of you, in the moment, in front of your very eyes and sometimes things do go wrong. It’s hard to replicate that.

“Theatre is very addictive and I’m captivated by that and never lose sense of it. So while TV and films pay the bills, it’s hard to beat the excitement of live performance and the adrenaline rush you get.”

Striking gold with Stones In His Pockets thanks to a cracking plot by his wife, Ian’s keen directorial hand and the novelty of all 15 characters being played by just two actors, the awards flowed in thick and fast.

So what’s its secret? “The play has serious core elements presented with a bright, lively, comic spin. There is something dark at the heart of it; a suicide, general tension in the community, and then it grows into something richer, so while it’s not a comedy as such, Marie is always a funny writer, the aim always being to entertain.”

Never foreseeing just how successful the play would become however, Ian says: “There’s no question that it’s been a real journey for us, but it’s been a really exciting experience as well.”

Originally picked up at the Edinburgh Fringe 10 years ago, Stones In His Pockets “just caught fire”. It’s always been a word-of-mouth recommendation,” he says proudly, “so I just hope word spreads in time for people to see it in Oxford before it moves on. But this play still has legs, is still exciting and is still doing its thing. But then its been part of our lives for a long time now.”

Stones In His Pockets comes to Oxford’s New Theatre on October 13. Box office on 08448713020. www.atgtickets.com/oxford