Prunella Scales has admitted she still worries about whether people will like her whenever she takes on a new role.
The 92-year-old actress was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014, and although her “memory is less good”, she says not working would leave her “very depressed”.
She has recently reprised his lifelong role as Queen Victoria records new voice-overs for a vengeful queen at the Tabard theatre studio in west London.
Speaking ahead of the final show on Tuesday, Prunella said The times“You go to a different place and you think, ‘Oh my God, these people aren’t going to like me.’ You have to deal with that every time.”
The Faulty Towers star and her 89-year-old husband Timothy West are still working, even after she ended her 67-year acting career in early 2020.
Prunella Scales has admitted she still worries about whether people will like her every time she takes on a new role (pictured in 2017)
Prunella explained: ‘Well, the answer to that is that we are still invited to do it. If we are out of work, we get very depressed.
“As you get older, your memory and your way of living minute by minute changes, doesn’t it? You become less efficient. My memory is worse. I mean, I forget to do things and that’s just the way you get older, just like everyone else.”
Reprising the role she first took on 44 years ago, the actress returned to her role as Queen Victoria at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last month.
She has portrayed the monarch more than 500 times in the play ‘An Evening with Queen Victoria’, both in London and in performances around the world until 2007.
Prunella also appeared as Queen Victoria in the children’s television programme ‘Station Jim’ in 2001 and the BBC drama ‘Victoria: An Intimate History’ in 2003.
In an interactive history project, he once recorded a monologue for a projection in front of the statue of Queen Victoria on Blackfriars Bridge in London.
The show’s writer Julian Machin said the veteran actress “exceeded all expectations” with her performance.
He said The Telegraph: ‘Although Prunella suffers from vascular dementia, which severely affects her in many ways, she retains a perfect long-term memory of herself and her work experience.’
The 92-year-old actress was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014 and although her “memory is less good”, she says not working would leave her “very depressed”.
The Faulty Towers star and her 89-year-old husband Timothy West are still working, even after she ended her 67-year acting career in early 2020 (pictured in 2020)
After nearly 50 years of playing Queen Victoria, Machin said that “her memory of having said those lines so many times over the years made directing her much easier than I had expected.”
Along with her husband and actor Timothy, Prunella revealed her diagnosis in 2014 during their Channel 4 show ‘Great Canal Journeys’.
The couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last year and spoke to the BBC about Scales’ deteriorating health.
In the moving interview, Prunella, who has suffered from symptoms of vascular dementia for more than 20 years, told her husband: “Thank you for being with me for so long.”
West replied: “Well, we’ve done well,” before asking: “It really hasn’t been hard work, has it?”
Last year, Timothy admitted he misses the “company” of his “best friend” as he continues his battle with dementia.
The couple, who “fell in love over crossword puzzles and packets of Polo mints”, first addressed her condition after she began struggling with her lines on stage in the early 2000s.
Scales, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty (pictured) in Fawlty Towers, ended her 67-year acting career in early 2020.
The veteran acting couple photographed together in When We Got Married in 1986
She explained that in 2003, Scales, who was performing in A Woman of No Importance, relied on “idiot boards” to get through the show.
They did not receive a formal diagnosis until 10 years later and explained that the progression of their disease “had taken a long time.”
Prunella ended her 67-year acting career in early 2020.
In the foreword to the book for her Channel 4 show, ‘Our Great Canal Journeys’, the actress wrote: ‘How do I feel about being in this situation? Well, angry, of course. I hate the idea that the world is still going on around me, but so much of it is shut down. I soon forget my anger, though, as I forget almost everything else.’
