Brian Beacom

EVER been to a spirit medium and found yourself desperate to be thrown little crumbs of comfort?

That need to be assured, to know something – anything – is paramount, yet all you gleam are generalisations and the same vague comment repeated.

That’s what it’s like chatting to Neshla Caplan about this week’s Oran Mor play.

Neshla stars alongside Alison Peebles and Andrew Still in Voices In Her Ear, a play featuring a spirit medium who talks to the dead for the last time.

But Neshla has been been warned not to reveal too much of the plot, for fear of a spoiler alert.

And that makes it tricky to reveal much more about David Cosgrove’s play. So what has she been allowed to say?

“Betty (Alison Peebles) is the spirit medium who’s hugely wealthy, with 20,000 hit a week on her website,” says Neshla.

“I play Betty’s loyal assistant, Siobahn and my job is to keep all the wheels turning behind the scenes.”

The play is set in a theatre, on the last night of a concert hall -style tour. But at the end of the night Betty gives a private reading.

“The like of which she has never encountered before.”

Gosh. Tell me more, Neshla? “I don’t know if I can,” she says, with an apologetic smile before adding; “Well, a young guy called Mark (Andrew Still) wants to have a private reading with Betty.”

Does Betty provide a connection with the deceased? “Can’t say. Told not to.” Mmm.

“There’s always a desire for people who lose someone to find comfort.”

Yes, Neshla, we know that. But do we discover Betty’s chats with the departed owe more to an Equity Card than true ability? Is Mark her long lost love-child? Is he in fact dead, like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense?

“All three of us make discoveries along the way,” she says, smiling, cryptically.

Let’s hope audiences will come see the play despite the lack of content information.

But at least Nesla Caplan is way more open about herself than she can be about the play.

She had begun her professional life as a singer, hoping to work in musical theatre.

“But I lost my way and focused on singing, then that fell by the wayside. So I worked in theatres, managing box offices.

“Then when I hit thirty I made a list of things I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to perform again and joined an amateur company and got the lead in Carousel.”

Neshla then realised the RSC in Glasgow was staging Carousel.

“I came through to see it and decided I would apply, on a whim.

“Incredibly, I got in so it was really lovely.”

Neshla graduated with an MA in 2014. The leap back into student world the hope of becoming an actor was bold.

“Yes, I was ready to buy a house, I had a nice job and a baby girl,” she says.

“But I needed to know what it would be like to go into acting. There is fear with what I’m doing, it’s an unpredictable life, yet I’m really happy.”

Since graduating Neshla, who is half-Turkish, has appeared in Ricky Ross’s musical, The Choir, running at the Citizens’.

“I played played an Italian and my next role will see me play an Egyptian, as Cleopatra.

“Thankfully, Scotland is a really diverse, open-minded country.”

Did a spirit medium tell her to make the leap into acting?

“No, but I went to see one with my mum one night at a working men’s club in Bridge of Allan.

“This lady told me I’d get a really important phone call from someone, who may be a nurse, and it would be really good news.

“Now, I’d had a few drinks, so I don’t know if I said anything, but as I was walking down the stairs I got a call from my good friend, Sarah, who said she was going to have a baby.”

Does she believe in spirit mediums? “I don’t think so. But even if I did believe and I could be told the future would I want to know?”

Perhaps a spirit medium would reveal a little more about this play.

* Voices In Her Ear, Oran Mor, until Saturday.