People ask could I have written the show I wrote in 1990 now, and I don't think I could. I think it's much easier to offend people nowadays. People have grown quite sensitive, I think.

I did grieve a bit when I wasn't having the chemo anymore. I was used to sitting in the little chair and then the nurse would come and do it. It was like that was your job for that long and it was reassuring.

In the "Absolutely Fabulous" show, it's a fairly dysfunctional family, but they're not women who are constantly in search of a man. They don't live conventionally, they don't live in a conventional heterosexual relationship. Edina wishes all her children were gay, because as far as she's concerned it's the most glamorous most interesting thing to be. I think it's about bucking convention, really, and living life without apologizing.

At home, I relax by gardening, or just pottering.

I love the TV show, and if you make a bad movie it means you've soiled it. Just like if we made an advert. We were offered so many times and I'd say, look, this is the good thing, and you can't compromise that, because then you compromise the integrity of the characters.

No, sometimes we just have to take liberties because the idea was so good. I wish we'd just gone with the idea that Patsy had been a man. It would have been fantastic.

Well, I'm lucky because, you see, I'll probably bounce back from this role.