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She began writing when she grew disillusioned with the lot of older actresses cast aside while their male contemporaries continued to work.

Her first novel The Actresses, written a decade ago, was a contemporary "bonkbuster" about a group of ageing actresses behaving badly.

"I wanted to write about what happens to middle-aged actresses, when you have played leads all your life and you find yourself playing the mother or the wife.

You worry what you look like and about your 'playing age' and you see men of your age getting leads when you are not.

Everyone always points to Helen Mirren and Judi Dench but they are the exceptions.

I don't blame Glenda Jackson for giving up in her 50s to become an MP because she wouldn't sit and wait for the phone to ring." Similarly she empathises with Cordelia, her mother Kitty, and friend Rillie, who turn their hands to mesmerism when the acting jobs run dry."I have supported myself all the time between acting jobs; as a maid, telephone operator or accountant.

Cordelia and her mother do what they have to to survive, otherwise they would end up in the workhouse or dying down a corner of Drury Lane.

"Young pretty girls became actresses in the hope that a rich man would see them and set them up ...

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