Miriam Margolyes: 'I'm not a national treasure - more of a national trinket'

Outrageous, outspoken, foul-mouthed and funny, award-winning actress and writer Miriam Margolyes, 85, may have mobility issues, but that’s not stopping her embarking on a 36-date book tour this autumn.

“It’s a rock star tour,” she declares with a twinkle in her eye. “But I’m not a rock star; I’m a little old lady. I’m only 4ft 10. There aren’t many people on the stage shorter than me.”

She uses sticks to help her on stage and has a wheelchair to hand, just in case, and worries that she’s not going to be good enough, she says.

Meeting her today over Zoom, she is as sweary as she is on TV, dryly asking the PR to tell her lodger who is loitering visibly in the garden to ‘f*** off’, before calmly turning back to me to relate amiably, in her cut-glass accent, some of the more pertinent parts of her latest book, Miriam’s Full English, which she suspects will be her last.

The actor and bestselling author – she has written three previous memoirs – who achieved international prominence with her portrayal of Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series, has been described as a ‘national treasure’ but thinks ‘national trinket’ is more accurate.

“It’s flattering to be thought of as any sort of a treasure, national or international, but I’m happy with anybody who listens to me and likes me and doesn’t try to rubbish me.”

While Margolyes has been an actor on stage and screen for a considerable time, she agrees that she’s become more famous in recent years.

“I didn’t know it was going to take so long. I always thought I’d be famous, but I didn’t know I’d have to wait till I was in my 80s.

"And I think I deserve it because I’m a nice person. I’m kind, and I think kindness is probably the most important thing of all.

"I do feel very grateful for the fact that I haven’t been sidelined, as many older women are, but I’ve never been beautiful. I’ve never been gorgeous. I’ve never been sexy.

“I’m just very lucky that television started to do things called chat shows, and I got invited on to them, and I started to show off, which is what I do, and it’s made me famous.”

Chat show host Graham Norton has described her as ‘TV gold', and she’s delighted that he will be interviewing her at the Royal Albert Hall during the book tour.

“It makes me nervous now when I go on his programmes because I don’t want to disappoint.”

In her new book, she turns her unflinching gaze on the British and what makes us tick.

The book covers everything from queuing to farting, accents, eccentricities, the weather, sex and smut. It is, as you’d imagine, full of quick wit, disarmingly candid observations and plenty of swearing.

“I am habitually foul-mouthed,” she agrees. “I’ve got a very posh voice, and that’s because I was born in Oxford, and I live a middle-class life.

"But it cuts you off from people if you sound middle class from the people who aren’t middle class, and that, I think, is one of the reasons why I swear, because I think that makes people understand I’m just like them.

"I use swearing as a conduit to that world that otherwise I might not reach.”

While much of the book pokes fun at the peccadillos of British society, there is a serious message that the country has lost its way.

“It seems to me that we are surrounded by slippery politicians and liars, and they are affecting our lives in a way that I don’t remember happening before.

"I think that politics, particularly, has overwhelmed people, and the evil of three men, particularly Trump, Netanyahu and Putin, has undermined people’s belief in the future, in the decency of the current world we live in, and in the fear of the future.

"I don’t have children. I never wanted children. I’m not sorry I don’t have children, but people who have children write to me and say, ‘I don’t know what to do about my grandchildren, about my children. How can I help them?’”

In the book she also disparages Nigel Farage (who she nicknames Niggle Garage) and former PM Boris Johnson.

Left wing she may be, but Margolyes also fires criticism at past Labour politicians. Known for being disarmingly honest in her anecdotes and opinions, she insists she never sets out to shock.

These days she turns down a lot, including Celebrity Traitors, which her friend Stephen Fry tried to persuade her to do, she reveals.

“I thought about it because I really like Stephen; I think he’s a force for good. But in the end, I thought, I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. I won’t do anything like that.

"I don’t like programmes where you have to choose people to be in or out. I don’t like competitions. I’ve been offered huge sums of money to do the jungle and that Strictly thing.”

Margolyes doesn’t need reality shows – in recent years she’s made travelogues and is about to film a documentary series in Australia, while her new road trip movie, Holy Days, about three nuns, made in New Zealand, has been released just before her book is published.

More than 60 years after her career began, she is still performing.

“When I step on stage now, usually I have sticks in my hands, but there’s a roar, a real roar, and I don’t think many performers get that who are not world famous or really rock stars.

"But there’s such an affection in that roar, and they are all smiling and clapping. Aren’t I lucky?”

Miriam’s Full English: A Grand Tour Of All Our Best Bits by Miriam Margolyes (John Murray, £25.) Miriam’s Full English tour with be at Harrogate Convention Centre, Oct 11; Connexin Live, Hull, Oct 13; Bradford Live Oct 16; The Dome, Doncaster, Nov 25 and Leeds Grand Theatre, Dec 3.