Nicole changes the lightbulbs in Dorchester

As every actress of a certain age knows, the proper lighting can work wonders for you. Whether 39-year-old Nicole Kidman feels she needs this treatment just yet is unknown.

But when the Hollywood star booked into a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London, she asked staff for all the lightbulbs to be changed from 60 watts to 40 watts.

The softer lighting was one of several requests Ms Kidman is said to have made in the ￡1,700-a-night suite where she is staying with her new husband, Keith Urban, while she shoots a film.

She is also said to have requested an air humidifier, and had a running machine installed, along with an exercise machine known as a wobble board, although this was denied by her spokeswoman.

Strangely, Ms Kidman has taken her husband, an Australian country music singer, to the same suite that was her favourite London hideaway while she was married to Tom Cruise. The corner suite is not the most expensive in the hotel, but the complex of rooms includes two bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as a reception room for entertaining her own guests and has fantastic views of Hyde Park.

Staff at the hotel said Ms Kidman looked relaxed and had been charming during her stay.

"We do get some real divas but she's been very good," one said. "There's not been as much extra work as you would expect with a major star.

"For the more experienced staff, who remember her from the last time she was here, it seems a bit odd because they were used to seeing her with Tom Cruise. But her new husband has been quite charming."

The actress is also said to have requested that her room is serviced by the same staff for security reasons and is believed to be leaving next weekend.

Ms Kidman and her husband have kept a low profile while in London, but were seen briefly when they dined with Sir Elton John's partner David Furnish at a party for Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace.

She has been travelling to Shepperton studios in South-West London to film the first part of an adaptation of the British author Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass.

She plays Marisa Coulter, the manipulative mother of the story's main character, starring alongside Daniel Craig who plays the evil Lord Asriel.

The actress has also found time this weekend to slip away from the Dorchester to Italy, where yesterday she was pictured at the window of a Rome apartment as she filmed a television advert.

Ms Kidman married Urban in June in Sydney following an 18-month-long romance after meeting him at an Australian awards dinner in Los Angeles in January 2005.

She was married to Tom Cruise for ten years and claimed in her divorce papers that she was shocked when he announced their marriage was over.