Katherine MacAlister talks to former EastEnder Nigel Harman about his busy schedule, which includes directing Shrek the Musical in Oxford

Nigel Harman is a tricky customer. It’s not that he disagrees with me, but ask him a question too close to the bone and he simply replies: “I wouldn’t know about that.” While enormously passionate about what he does, he is also very black and white, which makes for a bracing interview.

For example, when I ask if he minds being continually cast as a baddie, having played EastEnders bad boy Dennis Rickman, Green the rapist valet in Downton Abbey over Christmas and even Lord Farquaad in Shrek The Musical, he is almost insulted.

“I don’t see parts in terms of goodies or baddies. I just ask ‘does it excite me and is it difficult to do?’ I wish I wasn’t so attracted to that combination, but I am. So I don’t see it in those terms – it’s just whether I find the character and part interesting,” he says pointedly. “I just like to keep challenged.”

I’d read that the public often confused him with his characters and asked if that was hard to deal with? “I haven’t found the public to be like that or to be unforgiving. They don’t think that I’m a rapist, that I’m 3ft tall, or even that I’m Simon Cowell for that matter.”

“Look, I’m just an actor. Even when I was in EastEnders it wasn’t like that, that’s just what is reported in the press. When I’m out and about I talk to people about normal things like my children and dogs.”

Which goes to show he has no idea how convincing he is on screen, that air of mocking menace that stays with you long after his performance is over. But perhaps it’s his latest incarnation as Simon Cowell in X Factor The Musical that will ‘attract’ him the most, a role he has taken on while directing Shrek the Musical, which comes to the New Theatre, Oxford, later this year. It seems that Nigel is loathe to look a gift horse in the mouth and is grabbing this latest opportunity with both hands.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to manage everything. I’m just going to close my eyes and hope for the best, but yes I am a little busy,” he grins. So busy in fact that this interview has to take place months before the event, my window of opportunity disappearing as soon as X Factor rehearsals begin. He has also discovered today that Mount Pleasant – in which he plays Bradley – has been picked up for a second series by Sky.

“At least Green can’t be resurrected because he’s dead,” he laughs.

Perhaps his current workload is because jobbing actors can never say no?

“Look,” he says sighing. “Shrek has been part of my life for so long that the opportunity to direct it is one in a lifetime.

“So when X Factor came up I said ‘I can do it but I’m doing Shrek as well’ and they said ‘okay’. How will he manage both?

“The directing thing has been growing for a number of years and I’ve been waiting to take that step. I always knew I was going to do it and when asked to direct the tour I said I’d love to. And suddenly I’m 4-5 weeks of rehearsals in, have a really brilliant cast and we are really dug in.

“So everything else I’m doing has been booked in around Shrek, and I’m so into it it’s extraordinary.”

But once it’s up and running and he moves into X Factor will Shrek suffer?

“I don’t see it like that. It’s a great opportunity and something I knew I had in me and I’m very good at separating my work, so my life as Simon Cowell begins next week but I’m leaving Shrek in a good place and will then come back to it.

“And while directing is a little bit intimidating, it means I get to take the show to people all around the country instead of expecting them to trek to Drury Lane, so it works better on tour.”

Nigel, of course, knows the musical inside out having played Farquaad in the West End for several years.

“I was on my knees for a year which was physically exhausting and incredibly demanding but the part evolved and I absolutely loved it.

“I have to leave being an actor at the door now, but it does comes in handy because I know what the cast are going through and when they are excited or pushing too hard, because I’ve been there and done that.”

Won’t it be hard watching someone else play his beloved Farquaad though?

“Slightly weird at first but no one plays the part the same way, they always bring a fresh spin to it which is really exciting.”

Throw his family into the melting pot and you will begin to understand the pressure Harman is putting himself under, so are they supportive?

“I don’t talk about my private life to the press,” he says. Privacy aside then, if Harman has ‘a time’ then surely this is it? “You live a career which is sometimes in and sometimes out of the spotlight. I have got some interesting work lined up so we will see how it goes. As long as there’s challenge, that’s what excites me. “It does catch up with me sometimes and I think ‘wow this is quite good fun’ while another part of me wants to run away,” he admits, which is the closest Nigel Harman has come to acknowledging that he is human after all. Progress at last.

Shrek the Musical
New Theatre, Oxford
November 12-23, 2014
Tickets: 0844 8713020
Visit atgtickets.com/oxford