The daughter of a Glaswegian GP, Miriam Margolyes, 84, is an actress and writer who lives between London, Tuscany and Australia. Her latest show, Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits, is coming to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
What is your earliest memory?
Sitting in my pram outside our house in Oxford and a lady comes by and said if I went on sucking my thumb the big bad wolf or something like that would come with a pair of scissors and cut it off. And I remember thinking, God, you’re an idiot, you can’t expect me to believe that nonsense. I was quite a sceptic, even at two.
Did you have holidays in Scotland?
Hundreds. My father was born in Glasgow, so we’d come to visit his mother, aunt and uncle. I can do a very good Southside accent. I still have family there. I remember going to Skye with my partner the first time we were on holiday together. It was bliss. I loved it. I love islands. And when I was doing Call the Midwife we had a Christmas episode on Lewis.
The Isle of Skye, where Margolyes had her first holiday with her partner
ALAMY
Who would you say sorry to and why?
I suppose to my mother, because I’m gay and that upset her, and because I once, and very shockingly, slapped her. She was paralysed from a stroke, unable to speak, and wanted something, and I was in a frenzy of frustration, and so was she. And I will regret it till I die. The terrible thing about a stroke is that sometimes you can’t communicate. And that, for both of us, was terrifying and awful. I was overcome with horror at what I’d done. I didn’t hurt her, but I hurt myself.
What three words sum you up?
Greedy, generous, calculating.
Who was your childhood celebrity crush?
Doris Day as Calamity Jane with her cowboy boots and cracking a whip. She was tall, blonde and blue-eyed and I thought, wow.
Doris Day in the 1953 musical Calamity Jane
ALAMY
Tell us one lesson that life has taught you
The most important thing is kindness and we don’t have enough of it in the world, in our lives, in our neighbourhoods, in our politicians. Just be kinder.
Tell us a secret
I don’t have any secrets. That is my strength. I’m an open book. You can turn the pages if you’re not disgusted. And it’s all there, laid out for your delectation.
What is your favourite journey?
To Tuscany, to our house in a little village outside of Siena. I love the peace, the people and the outlook. The extraordinary, familiar, Renaissance look of olives and vines and hills and villages. And the food. It’s all fabulous, I love it.
Margolyes owns a house in a village outside Siena, Tuscany
ALAMY
What is the most outrageously untrue thing that’s been said about you?
That I’m vile. It’s usually people who comment on social media and it’s probably because of my attitude towards Gaza and towards Israel. I’m very outspoken and will continue to be so. It does offend some people, and they call me disgusting, vile, hideous and so on. Not true at all. I’m absolutely delightful.
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What was your first family holiday?
I was about five and we went to Kingsgate near Broadstairs in Kent, where my parents had a little house. We drove from Oxford and Mummy said: “In the morning when you get up you’ll see the sea.” And I said: “What’s the sea?” I got up early, before anybody else was up, opened the front door and toddled down the road to this blue thing that was huge and moving. It suddenly dawned on me that it was the sea. And then I heard my mother behind screaming: “Miriam, Miriam, come back! Don’t move any closer to the edge of the cliff.”
What song would you have played at your funeral?
My wife has told me that I should have MacCrimmon’s Lament by Jeannie Robertson, the wonderful Gaelic singer. When Jewish people go do their death we have a completely unadorned coffin and no shrouds and no flowers. MacCrimmon’s Lament is completely unadorned: it is just a lament for a dead person, and the melody is heart-rending.
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What has been your most embarrassing moment?
I’m not easily embarrassed, except by physical things. What’s awful about growing old is that you become physically embarrassing. I have not allowed myself to be embarrassed for many, many years because it limits you.
Who was your childhood hero?
Probably Winston Churchill. I remember seeing this tottering old ruin when I went to parliament on a school trip and thinking, “That’s Winston Churchill, the saviour of the free world as we thought of him then. How are the mighty fallen.” He had been the man who we all adored and we felt had saved us.
Margolyes grew up idolising Winston Churchill
ALAMY
What’s your new Edinburgh show, Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits, about?
It’s about me and about Charles Dickens, mostly about me, probably, but a lot about Mr Dickens too. And I do a bit of acting, which is always fun for me. I haven’t forgotten how to act — and I always remember how to talk.
Miriam Margolyes stars in Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits, Aug 9-24 (not 18, 21), Pleasance at EICC, edfringe.com