A faint flapping sound is audible, soon followed by full-blown clapping.

“Can you hear it?” asks Carley Stenson, unable to stifle a giggle.

Like her character, Christine, in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the actress has more than one trick up her sleeve.

She discovered quite by accident that she could ‘wriggle’ her wrist and clap with one hand – hence her rather surreal (and blind) demonstration down the end of the phone.

“I just saw someone doing it on TV and I copied it. I thought everyone could do it but apparently I’m a bit of an anomaly,” she laughs. “It’s a talent I’m not really grateful for. It’s the weirdest thing.”

The one-hand clapper’s knack for physical comedy made her the ideal candidate to join the musical adaptation of the classic Steve Martin slapstick film.

As a child growing up during the heyday of the comedian turned actor’s movie career, she is also well versed in his body of work.

“I grew up watching The Man with Two Brains and Roxanne. It’s daft silly fun. I had seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels years ago and when I got the audition it was an excuse to watch the film again. I love all the classics.”

After ten years as on Hollyoaks, Carley made the leap from television to the West End with a series of lead roles in Shrek, Legally Blonde and Spamelot.

This foray into musical theatre was years in the making for the born singer and dancer.

A self-confessed ‘annoying kid’, the precocious performer enlisted her family as a go-to audience.

“I would start singing, dancing and acting wherever I was, in front of the family. I went to visit my aunty, who I’d never met, in South Africa when I was four and she said the first thing I said to her was ‘Do you want to hear a joke?’ I was a pain in the bum. I loved musical theatre. I did singing and dancing competitions. Anything going, I would jump on the bandwagon.

“But I love both musical theatre and TV. It doesn’t matter what I do as long as I get excited by a role. I did a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival two years ago. It was a month and it wasn’t paid. My agent said it was time I could have used to audition but the role was exciting. It was one of the best months of my life.”

The musical follows Lawrence Jameson, originally played on screen by Michael Caine, a sophisticated conman duping the rich and mighty on the French Riviera. His little trade however comes under threat with the arrival of larger-than-life Freddy Benson, a conman of an entirely different order.

Soon realising the town is not big enough for both of them, they find themselves going head to head in the con of their lives, pulling out all of the stops to win the affections of millionaire soap heiress Christine Colgate. But Christine is not quite what she appears.

“I don’t want to give too much away,” she says mischievously. “She is very sweet and innocent at first but there are a few surprises.

“I love the show. You’re uplifted it’s fun. It’s a great story and very witty.”

It would not be in the Steve Martin vein of comedy if things did not go awry time and again.

But Carley and the cast have come to count on Michael Praed, the show’s Lawrence, and his flair for improvising his way out sticky situations. The only issue has been to rein his talent in once unleashed.

“We’ve already had some crazy things happen on stage. There is a whipping scene and the whip broke in Michael Praed’s hand, the stick just snapped. We didn’t know where to go from there. Thankfully the crew had a spare one and walked with it on stage. Michael than went off on one, talking about it on stage. He is the improvisational king.

“It’s the kind of show where it works. We break the fourth wall. You couldn’t do that in Les Mis but we can get away with being a bit cheeky."

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will run at the New Theatre Oxford from Tuesday, August 4 to Saturday 8.

Tickets are available from the box office on 0844 871 3020 at www.atgtickets.com/oxford.