JIMMY Chisholm is a little tired this morning, and it’s nothing to do with late nights and a little indulgence.

And he’s been picking up rave reviews for his performance in Liz Lochhead’s Thon Man Moliere, at the Lyceum.

But during the daylight hours, the former High Road star has been rehearsing for this week’s Oran Mor play, Mack The Knife.

It’s a testimony to the man’s energy, and his talent, he’s working on two pieces at the same time.

“Yes, but I love working with Morag Fullerton,” he says of the writer/director of Mack The Knife.

“She has pulled it all together and created an incredible theatre show. She really has packed in everything. And it works.”

Mack The Knife is part of Oran Mor’s mini-musicals series, telling the tale of the famous song.

The play is set in Berlin in the late 1920s, a time of decadence, despair and joie de vivre.

A young Jewish composer, Kurt Weill, meets his muse , singer Lotte Lenya and falls in love.

He collaborates with playwright Bertolt Brecht on what they both consider a ‘bit of a potboiler’, but the rehearsals are fraught with disaster and the production destined to fail.

A creative row triggers the last minute inclusion of a hurriedly composed song and amazingly, the show becomes a resounding success.

As Threepenny Opera delights audiences across Europe, a new barbarism is erupting which will force the city’s thriving artistic community to scatter and change everyone’s lives forever.

“The main thread of the story is how the song ended up in the Threepenny Opera and who sang it,” says Inverness-born Jimmy.

“But it’s a fascinating story. There is an awful lot of threat around at this time with the Nazi rise to power and of course the Jewish artists feel particularly vulnerable.

“I think it’s a funny piece, it’s moving and it’s shocking.”

He adds, grinning; “It’s everything you want in a lunchtime play.”

Indeed. The story begins in 1922 and runs on to 1993 and the opening production of the Threepenny Opera.

“It starts with Kurt Weill meeting this young girl from the country, Lotte Lenya, for the first time.

“And of course Brecht and Weill are trying to get some money together to be able to put a show in the theatre.”

Jimmy plays two characters in the mini-musical.

“I play the actor Harald Paulsen, who played Macheath in the original production.

“I also play Kurt Gerron, who sang the song Mack The Knife and ended up becoming a celebrity on the back of it.

“In fact, the whole of Germany loved Mack The Knife and it became a theme song. There was a frenzy for it.”

The song’s emergence was something of a fluke.

“Yes, it was just a couple of days before the opening of the Threepenny Opera and the lead actor who was playing Macheath decided the character was a gentleman, and presented him as a snappy dresser.

“And this infuriated Brecht. He reckoned the character was from the underclasses, he was a criminal and should look like a criminal.

“But the actor refused; he wanted to hold on to the snappy costume and said if he didn’t get to wear it, he would walk.

“And the produces had been through such trouble they decided to keep him as a snappy dresser.

“So what they did do was put a song at the front of the show to try and go along with this new image.”

In many ways the production was chaos. One of the main actresses did walk.

And Peter Lorre, who was cast in the show, couldn’t take part because of illness.

“But the show was a huge success. And then the Nazi movement grew and Lenya and Brecht had to leave the country.”

It’s an epic, condensed into an hour.

“Morag Fullerton has come up with an amazing show but of course it also features Angela Darcy, who is such an amazing singer, George Drennan and Harry Ward.

“And the music is superb. Simple and superb.”

Jimmy does sing in the show. And not for the first time in an Oran Mor production.

“When I appeared in the cut-down version of Casablanca I sang,” he says, smiling.

“I played Sam. But of course Saw was represented as a ten inch puppet it was down to me, behind the screen with a mike, to give his voice.”

The joys of acting. One minute your ten inches tall, the next you’re a singer on a Berlin stage being watched by Nazis.

Or in this case, being watched by Oran Mor audience, which is far more friendly.

“That’s definitely the case,” says the actor, grinning.

*Mack The Knife, Oran Mor, until Saturday.