TAMSIN IN HER PUNK ERA

The Green Wing star Tamsin Greig on the joy of learning new skills 'n midlife, her aversion to musicals and why she never wants to retire

- NICKY MORRIS

With her 60th birthday on the horizon, the actor Tamsin Greig is embracing new challenges and says that she has no plans to retire.

"I can't see that ever being a part of my experience," she tells HELLO! in this exclusive interview. "Every time I take a new job, it's like taking on a new challenge."

The Olivier Award-winning star, best known for Green Wing, Episodes, Black Books and Friday Night Dinner, is in one of the lead roles in the BBC drama Riot Women, about a group of menopausal women who form a punk rock band.

"I never thought, 'Maybe I would like to learn an instrument and form a band,'" says Tamsin, who got to grips with playing bass guitar for her role as divorced police officer Holly.

"I wouldn't dare think that way. But then this work turns up, and I go, 'Oh, I can do that.' That was really thrilling."

Her two grownup sons, Jakob and Nathanael, are both musical. “My sons have both been in bands, and it’s a little bit embarrassing when your mum starts picking up your bass,” says the TV star who also has a daughter, Roxie, with her husband, the actor Richard Leaf.

“One of my sons was helpful by showing me how the instrument worked, with the strings and tuning. But he didn’t ever take it off me and go, ‘No, like this’, because I think that would have destroyed me.