Prunella Scales

In my extreme youth I did a terrifying diet - drinking 40 cups of liquid a day.

I just think it's useful for people to know that even if you are off the telly you're just an ordinary person who uses the Tube.

The charming sitcom is all very well, but good comedy is based on pain and danger and fear.

My elder son and his wife keep bees, and my younger son has bees, too.

I feel very grateful for Sybil. 'Fawlty Towers' was very hard to make, but it was very stimulating.

Sometimes with good writers you don't spot the theme, but when you come away you realise there has been one.

Contrary to popular belief, actors are extremely supportive of each other.

It doesn't matter what people think about you, so long as they get the play through your performance. Only a few not very good actors go in for self-advertisement.

I'd love to play Constance in 'King John' or Paulina in 'The Winter's Tale.' I'd like to go on working till I drop.

I got a job right out of drama school as assistant stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic. I've been lucky enough to stay in work ever since.

A good actor just wants to deliver the writing to the audience who've paid that night. There's an agonising desire to get it right.

Being out of work is very depressing. But luckily I haven't been there for a long time.

I can't bear it when young actors do too much finger-wagging. It spoils the audience's concentration.

I had quite a healthy childhood in the countryside, but I did have double pneumonia aged eight, and was one of the first patients to be given antibiotics.

My mother was originally from Yorkshire and I spent a lot of my childhood there.

I'm of a generation that doesn't expect automatic happiness, so I feel incredibly lucky.

In our profession if you've got an ugly mark or there's anything that cosmetic surgery can do for you I think it's absolutely fine. I would consider it, but I've been very lucky not to have to.

The thing I simply hate about my job is any 'celeb' coverage.

I can't bear the idea or concept of being a 'celeb.'

I don't like being recognised. Shopping, I often wear glasses and a scarf.

I think protecting rural England is more important than any work I do as an actress.

Everyone said how brilliant of Tom Conti to be in bed in 'Whose Life Is it Anyway?' and only have his head to act with. He should be so bloody lucky. I'm not for a moment disputing that Tom Conti is an absolutely brilliant actor. But he should be so lucky to be stuck upstage in the spotlight, with everyone focused on him.

John Cleese is a very fast worker and a highly disciplined one.

I love long runs. I never feel ready to go till about the second Wednesday matinee.

The people you learn most from are the audiences, which is why I'm always best on my last night.

When I was very young I was never pretty or beautiful and didn't get the chance to play many parts I'd have loved to tackle: the great Shakespearean parts - Viola, Helena.

I've got very little grey hair. It's to do with the genes. My mother and father were the same.

I don't think theatrical marriages are necessarily less stable than others; I think this is a slight misapprehension.

I have worked for Tesco and am grateful to them but in principle I believe in individual shops.

Dad was the generation that fought in both world wars, and people married rather later when they had been in the trenches. My mum was an actress and he saw her in a show in London and they married. She stopped acting when she had babies, which is a shame.

I love being a grandmother.

I grew up in a household that was very friendly towards the theatre and acting.

My very first school was a primary school in Surrey. I remember being taught to read by the traditional ABC, instead of look-say - that is, whole words at a time - which was fashionable when my children were at school.

In 1940 my mum took a job as under-matron at her old school, which had been evacuated from Eastbourne to Windermere; I got a bursary and spent eight years as a boarder. It was a smashing education; I regret being at a single-sex school, but I had a brother, so knew what guys were.

I stayed a year in the sixth form and there was talk of Cambridge, but I wanted to go to drama school. At 17 and three months I went to the Old Vic School in London. This most remarkable and brilliant drama school lasted only six years because the Old Vic Theatre hadn't the money to go on funding it.

In 1954 I was on Broadway for five months in 'The Matchmaker' and went once a week to the classes of Uta Hagen, a theatrical guru whose teaching in retrospect illuminated the whole of my training at the Old Vic.

It's strange how 'Fawlty' has become a perennial. I keep meeting new generations of schoolboys who know the lines better than I did when I said them. The program has sensational sales in video. I'm mercifully on a small percentage.

I shouldn't be surprised if John Cleese's scripts don't become set texts for examinations-they're classics. And I can't tell you how service in English hotels has improved since 'Fawlty Towers.'

I'm not a very assertive person.

It isn't often I get a part that enables me to play someone from the age of 13 up to 81.

The Victorian Age was very stimulating, historically impressive.

I think local shopping areas and markets are terribly important, both for tradespeople and the local feeling of an area.

My mother and father were lovely parents, always quite hard up, but very hard-working.

Supermarkets must not eliminate the individual retailers and market roads like the Northcote.

When you watch some old sitcoms, however charming they are, they have often lost speed over the years. The speed of 'Fawlty Towers' has lasted the distance.

I'm afraid my own approach to everything is exactly the same: Who am I? What do I want? What are the circumstances - difficult or non-difficult? What are the obstacles, physical and non-physical? Finally, given who I am, the circumstances, the obstacles, what do I do? That's the only thing you do. You've got to do the action.

What is it about royalty - even if you're a confirmed republican - that is dramatically interesting?

Gertrude's Secret' is highly entertaining. Some of the monologues are very funny, some very surprising and some painful.

I love live theatre, it's always thrilling and exciting.

It breaks my heart to hear of our theatres struggling to survive. As well as playing a vital role in community life, they're guardians of our heritage and should be cherished.