Jane Asher has been on our screens for almost 73 years – her first role was aged five, in Mandy, and she turns 78 on 5 May. But it was aged 17 she really shot to big screen prominence, opposite Vincent Pryce in The Masque of the Red Death.
Then, two years later, in 1966, came Alfie, in which she plays a hitchhiker who becomes the latest in Michael Caine’s litany of conquests; in 1970 she was the lead in Jerzy Skolimowski’s suburban psychodrama Deep End.
Her small screen CV is also a thing of length and class: The Goodies, Rumpole of the Bailey, the classic Granada adaptation of Brideshead Revised, Holby City, A Voyage Round My Father and the brilliant second world war espionage drama Wish Me Luck. A brief role in Doctors was, she told the Guardian, a “nadir”; she has apologised to Crossroads fans for her part in the 2003 reboot.
Asher is also a three-time novelist and an accomplished baker and cake decorator with a sideline in terrific tins and nozzles, as well as an active advocate for autism and Parkinson’s organisations.
In recent years, she’s concentrated on stage work, including Festen, Peter Hall’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce, Charley’s Aunt, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations (as Miss Havisham) and as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.
And now she’s starring in A Family Affair, released on 20 May in the UK: a new British comedy about a couple who run a ropy spiritual retreat in a country manor house.
Post your questions for the national treasure – and inspiration for Beatles hits including And I Love Her – by noon BST on Tuesday 7 May.
