'I don't feel like an old lady, although I am'

Actor Alison Steadman on ageing, Gavin & Stacey and her new TV family

- VICKI POWER

It’s hard to believe that Alison Steadman will turn 79 next month. The comedy icon and star of Gavin & Stacey is vibrant and attractive, and doesn't look – or for that matter feel – her age when we meet to discuss her latest project, the third series of the BBC sitcom Here We Go.

Alison is still sunny and funny, despite having had a difficult few months. She fell and hurt herself in February during a trip to Dubai to promote her memoir, Out of Character.

'We were taken to the desert for a beautiful evening concert of poetry and music,' she begins. 'They had a buffet and a concrete walkway built into the sand, and a bit was sticking up a little. My shoe caught it and I just landed on my foot full weight. I broke my hand, I broke my foot and it wasn't much fun.

'When the ambulance came, the medic woman bent down to me and said, "So tell me, how did you fall off the camel?"' says Alison, mimicking the stern paramedic's accented voice. 'I said to her, "I didn't fall off a camel! I haven't even seen a camel!" She must have seen "elderly woman, British, broken her foot, she must have fallen off a camel". At the time I was really cross about it, but now I find it funny.'

Alison was in a wheelchair for three months while it healed and, as one of our most in-demand actors, had to cancel work.

'It disrupted my whole life and it's not been easy,' she admits. 'I had to have surgery and I've got to have more surgery in September, to take the steel plates and screws out.