MUM-of-two Kirsty Stuart is starring in this week’s Oran Mor play about a first-time mother who simply can’t cope.

And the one-woman play, Flo, happens to be written by her partner, Martin McCormick.

It’s set in Iraq, as it happens, where Mike, a doctor on placement is carrying out reconstructive surgery on bomb victims, while his wife is falling apart.

Context apart, was Kirsty’s partner recreating part of their own journey, a rewind on the arrival of the couple’s youngest, Joe?

“Yes, a lot of the play is based around my own experience and the very real struggle of becoming a parent,” she offers.

“The reality for a lot of mums is not the Facebook experience, where young mothers constantly post pics of their beautiful little cherubs.

“The truth is you can be up all night, they don’t feed the way they should. And then there would be the times I’d be at home and not able to cope and Martin would be going off to work, with me thinking ‘F****** hell. Are you leaving me?’

“There were times when Martin would come home and I’d still be on the sofa, in my dressing room, incapable of movement, unable to get the buggy down the stairs of the flat and go for a coffee.

“It was hard.”

Kirsty, who grew up in Penicuik, reveals the wider issue problems of being a new mother.

“What I had never considered was how my personality was being ignored,” she admits.

“I’d never planned on being a stay at home mother, I’d always worked.

“Suddenly, I felt that I didn’t matter anymore and I was a total slave to this little thing.”

She adds; “I’m not saying this is a play about post-natal depression. “I suppose you could use the term but I’d be wary of that, because it’s such a real condition for plenty of mums.”

Setting the play in Iraq gives the play a more dramatic backdrop, but it also serves to heighten Helen’s sense of isolation.

Yet, what drives the play forward. Where is Helen heading towards? Crises? Madness?

“Yes,” she admits. “Her enemy in the play is the baby.

“She has nowhere to turn. And we see her suffer this sleep-deprived madness.

“Her husband is there to be a hero for twelve hours a day and so she doesn’t want to burden him. All she has to do is look after the baby and she can’t even do that.”

Helen was a teacher, a woman who now believes she’s been reduced to “the same status as a moron.”

It all suggests a great empathy play, a story young mums – and dads- will appreciate.

But it’s not a play which contains fifty-five minutes of undiluted baby misery.

“What Martin has does is undercut the serious with humour,” says Kirsty, smiling.

“There is laughter in there. And Martin is able to put the man’s thoughts into the story as well, to reflect how helpless men, at times, can feel.”

Back to her personal story, was the arrival of her second boy, Charlie (now two) a much easier experience?

“No!” she says with a wry smile. “I thought it would be. Without going into too much gory detail I had problems feeding.

“Charlie couldn’t swallow, and the milk would dribble out of his mouth and this nightmare lasted four months.”

Kirsty and Martin, who live near Falkirk, (the couple met six years ago while appearing at the Tron Theatre in I Was A Beautiful Day) feared the very worst for baby Charlie.

Doctors were dumbfounded. All sorts of treatments were attempted. Then Kirsty, now desperate and on an internet search, found the answer, and found a clinic in Huddersfield who treated his condition.

Charlie, she discovered, was tongue-tied, which simply meant the piece of skin underneath the tongue was too tight. At the clinic his tongue was snipped - and he fed like a hungry navvy.

Now, Kirsty, who was once set to study Psychology at Glasgow University before leaping onto acting, is delighted to back at work.

There’s little doubt she can call upon the experience to excel in the role, given not only her personal, but professional experience, working in theatre across the country.

And being a mum is also a delight.

“Until it comes to going home at night to learn lines,” she says, smiling.

“And when you’re in a one-woman play that’s an awful lot of lines to learn.”

*Flo, Oran Mor, until Saturday.