Fright night

Here comes Jane Asher. She swings through the doors of a small Chelsea hotel, chucks her bag on the floor, and sits down with an expectant look. Her voluminous red hair has attractive hints of something blonder on top. Her eyes are pale blue, and extraordinarily intense, and she has a fulsome rack of plump white teeth that hint at large appetites. But her figure is as trim as a teenager’s.

We meet a few weeks before she begins rehearsing Charley’s Aunt, the classic Victorian farce in which she plays a Brazilian dowager, Donna Lucia d’Alvadorez.

Does she think it’ll be more fun because the script is a bundle of laughs?

‘No, there are always those technical things that are just as tricky to do. And if it’s not funny, it’d be a disaster. Whether it’s comedy or tragedy, the fear is the same.’ She seems fascinated by the subject of backstage nerves.