Actress Tessa Peake-Jones tells Marion McMullen how being back on tour is lovely jubbly

WHAT is it like to be touring again in writer Terence Rattigan’s classic drama The Winslow Boy?

I have not done a tour since my kids were born. Life stopped for children. I did not want to go away when they were little. You have them for such a very short time.

I have done theatre in London, but have not toured for years. I really want to get out there again and go to all these beautiful theatres and perform to people outside London. I feel ready to go back.

Are there any essentials you’ll be taking with you?

I’m a bit of a nester. I’m Taurean and very home-based. Each place I go I try and make it home.

One thing I will be taking with me this time that I wouldn’t have 30 years ago is microwave steam bags. I’ve just bought a pack of 60.

You just pop some raw veg in them and put them in the microwave for three minutes. So I can still have my green veg where I go.

And I might take tea bags as well so I don’t have to go searching for the local supermarket.

You turn 61 during the tour. Any birthday plans?

(Laughs) I seem to work every year on my birthday and I enjoy it. Otherwise you can end up thinking ‘as well as getting older, I’m also unemployed.’ I’ll meet up with lots of friends for my birthday.

Who are you most like... Raquel in Only Fools And Horses, Mrs Maguire in ITV drama Grantchester or Grace Winslow in The Winslow Boy?

I’ve been very lucky I’ve played characters the public like and Raquel and Mrs Maguire have been a joy to do.

(Laughs) I really don’t think I’m like Mrs Maguire. I don’t think I’m as grumpy or stony-faced as she is.

Raquel I’m like little bits of, but I think I am most like Grace Winslow. She holds the family together. She’s the mum and she’s defending her little boy.

Did you have any idea the impact Raquel would have?

I had no idea of the comedy television scene at the time. I had been doing very serious work before I went into Only Fools And Horses and I had never even seen the programme before.

I loved the script, Raquel was this stripogram, and I just thought ‘this is a fantastic part to play.’

I thought it would be like any other television. I had no idea they filmed it with an audience. (Laughs)

That was a shocker. When I went and met the rest of the cast they said ‘you won’t be able to travel on the Tube ever again.’

What was it like after the first episode came out?

I was living in the East End at the time and I went out after it was shown and I couldn’t believe the reaction. I said to my partner at the time (actor Douglas Hodge) ‘Doug, I think we might have to move home.’ I couldn’t even go into Sainsbury’s shopping.

I still travel by Tube though. I have a duffle coat with a hood and I take a newspaper and no-one bothers me.

Something like that does not have to change your life.

It was never as bad for me though as it was for David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst. Wherever they went they caused a hoohah. I never had to deal with that.

What is your earliest theatre memory?

We used to go to panto every year. I was five or six years old and we lived in north London and would go on Boxing Day to Golders Green Hippodrome to see the panto.

We didn’t have a car so we would get the bus. I remember the sheer excitement of seeing all these very colourful, weird and wonderful characters and being allowed to shout and scream back at them and then having sweets thrown at you.

Almost my favourite part of Christmas was that Boxing Day panto. My mother loved the theatre and we would go to the Old Vic as well and be right up in gods watching restoration comedies and Shakespeare. I remember that so clearly. When did you start performing? At secondary school I had a very inspirational English teacher who opened up the world of Shakespeare, modern writing and dramas.

At 16 I wrote to drama school. I didn’t know what to do but I wrote to Central because I had read in the Radio Times about an actor who said they went to Central so I wrote to them. They were very sweet and wrote back and said I was too young to apply, but to write again next year.

Are there any acting roles you’d still like to do?

I’d quite like to do more Shakespeare at some time.

You get to 60 though and he didn’t write many roles for women, and certainly not for the older woman. I’d like to do some comedy as well.

* The Winslow Boy comes to Birmingham Rep Theatre from Feb 21 – March 3. 0121 236 4455. www.birming ham-rep.co.uk