Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

I think everybody who was in it thought they were all going to be Eartha Kitt or be big stars. That didn't happen, but it was a wake-up call to have one's first professional job on Broadway, I must say.

The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I'm beginning to feel like a person now. My energy is coming back.

There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

Sort of what you do in drama school when asked to play something way out of your reach. Anyway, we used to laugh a lot about that. I used to say I'm not going to act old, Penelope. I'll just be myself.

It was - it's always very nice to be somebody rather grand.