"It was very thrilling to meet her," says Catherine. "She didn’t commission this season so she wasn’t as hands on as if she’d been doing it this year, but she was absolutely involved.

"We met her a couple of times – she greeted us when we first turned up and gave a welcoming speech. She came to the first preview and the first night. Her husband (screenwriter Andrew Upton) was involved in some rehearsals and decisions."

Written by Stephen Jeffreys, The Convict’s Opera has its roots in a much older work – The Beggar’s Opera, which satirised Italian opera by using familiar tunes and characters who were ordinary people.

It has been reproduced in many guises, including the 1928 version The Threepenny Opera with words by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill

It was also adapted for BBC television in the early 1980s, with Bond’s Roger Daltrey in the main role of Macheath and Bob Hoskins as the Beggar.

Catherine puts its enduring appeal down to its originality and choice of musical score, which has been modernised for The Convict’s Opera – a show she describes as 65/70% of the original.

"There’s something very intriguing about it – most plays aren’t written about the underbelly of society. They are all criminals, crooks, prostitutes, highwaymen, and yet the story is high opera," she explains.

"It’s a romantic story that’s normally associated with the higher eschelons of society.

"The original was hugely successful – it was the first musical as it were and ran for longer than any play in London ever had. I think the appeal then, and hopefully what we’ve managed to do as well, is pulling together songs and music from the period that people knew.

"We get gales of laughter of recognition when we break into You’re So Vain or Stand By Me in the middle of it all."

The latest version depicts a group of convicts ordered to put on a show set in the criminal underworld of London they’ve left far behind.

The plot structure of a play within a play is more appreciated by the young and the old than by middle- aged audiences, Catherine reveals.

"Young people absolutely adore it and I’m hoping that Liverpool will be a young crowd. It’s the middle aged people who want it all to make sense immediately and it doesn’t quite – you just have to watch it and trust that it will in the end.

"It seems to be an age thing, which is very curious. I’m middle-aged myself and it seems to be something about us that wants everything to make sense immediately.

"But it’s a fun evening and it’s been great to be involved."

The Convict’s Opera, Liverpool Playhouse, March 10-14.