Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an actress, she's probably most easily recognised as that epitome of suburban shrewishness,

Sybil Falty, wife to John Cleese Manick Hotel Keeper in the television series.

That role in fact represents a tiny portion of what she's done.

Her versatility has kept her continuously employed since she made her debut in Bristol 40 years ago.

But she achieved new heights with a recent theatrical and television role. She played the Queen in

Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution. She is Prunella Scales. Let's deal with the

Queen first, Prunella. I mean, am I right in thinking that it was the first time a reigning monarch had been portrayed on the stage?

Apparently.

That presumably made it really very difficult for you because you would lay yourself open to attacks of of being disrespectful so it better be good?

No I think what what it did I mean I assumed that my employers had ascertained that it was legal

so I didn't worry too much about that but what it does mean is that the blasphemy factor was absolutely splendid.

I mean the fact that it was the first time the actual Queen had been seen on stage where she has never been seen before at the Royal National Theatre no less meant that people were

hanging on your every word and it was extraordinarily easy to get the laughs which

was a big bonus. I enjoyed it in way less on television all

than I thought the play was very successful on television because we see the

Queen all the time on television, the real Queen. And so, you know,

when you saw this person coming on and you went in and close up and it

wasn't the real queen it was only boring old me in a wig you know it was it was

to me terribly disappointing and I can't believe that the public would

...