One of the country's best-loved actresses Prunella Scales is at the Palace Theatre as Queen Victoria. She talks to SALLY KING

Prunella Scales CBE, mistress of the comic battleaxe and character actress supreme is donning a wig and shawl to appear at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff as Queen Victoria next week.

The show, An Evening with Queen Victoria, is based on the writings of the queen herself and follows her life from a young princess aged just 13 to the last entry in her journal, dictated to her daughter, just two days before her death.

How does any actress, even one as skilled as Prunella, age from 13 to 81 in front of a theatre audience?

"The audience do it for you," she says. "I wear ordinary street make-up and the wigs are only references to her hair, they're not slavish reproductions."

Although she has been asked how she manages to change so dramatically in so little time, she maintains: "I don't touch my make-up."

It was during a Canadian tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company appearing in The Hollow Crown (a history of England through the writings of monachs) in 1974 that Prunella came to be interested in the queen.

"I took Queen Victoria's published journals out of the public library for a bit of background. I was knocked out by them. They were extraordinarily funny, lively and entertaining."

When friend and writer Katrina Hendrey voiced her wish to write for Prunella, tenor Ian Partridge and pianist Richard Burnett, the writings of the queen were suggested. "She was also knocked out by them," says Prunella.

The play is written, using direct quotes from Victoria's own writing, to include music that she would have known through her life - including some written by her husband Prince Albert.

After a private performance in one of their homes, the trio took the show to the Old Vic on a Sunday in January 1980. "The BBC picked it up and we've been doing it ever since," laughs Prunella who still travels round the country with the production.

"We did our twentieth anniversary show at the Wigmore Hall last week."

The show continues to pull in the crowds across the country. "We were full in Cornwall and turning people away at the Wigmore.

"She was a fascinating figure. Her writing is interesting, touching and surprisingly funny - on purpose and by mistake! Queen Victoria had a good sense of humour."

Prunella has had a blessed working career, sharing her talent with theatre audiences all over Britain as well as in the West End and around the world. She has appeared in films, and in a variety of TV programmes.

Yet it is as Sybil Fawlty - the bossy, exasperated wife of Basil in the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers, and more recently as the interfering mother in the Tesco advertisements - that she is probably best known.

Her spirited on-stage characters are reflected in the off-stage woman. She is a dedicated preserver of the English countryside: "I am president of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. They do a fantastic job.

"They try to anticipate building on greenfield sites and identify brownfield sites so that they can build housing without sprawling onto the green.

"It is not at all a not-in-my-back-yard organisation. Very few own any countryside - I certainly don't - but they love the English countryside and want to protect it.

"It's unique, different from any other countryside in the world. Different even from Ireland and Scotland. It's worth protecting.

"We have an office in Westminster, and sometimes have the ear of authority. There are branches all over the country to protect the countryside from being spoiled."

As president she is only expected to chair two meetings a year, one of which will be a members-only closed meeting in Southend on Wednesday.

Her interest clearly goes beyond what is expected of her, however: "I met the Cornish branch in Truro recently. It was a fascinating meeting.

"Every area has a special problem. Cornwall is an area of natural beauty and has economic problems.

"They are a very lively branch working with local problems in the Cornish countryside and economy."

Countryside and economy don't always make good bedfellows. "Theycan go together," maintains Prunella, "if you're very careful."

So the queen of British comedy will continue to defend her green and pleasant land in-between being the queen who reigned over it for longest.

Tickets for An Evening With Queen Victorare available from the box office at the Palace Theatre, London Road, Westcliff, or by calling 01702 342564.

Comedy favourite - Prunella Scales, currently on TV in the Tesco ads, is probably best remembered as Fawlty Tower's Sybil, but she has also worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company

(Left) Regal - Prunella Scales as Queen Victoria in old age

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