‘I'm naturally noisy, chatty AND HUGGY!'

Despite enduring a terrible lockdown, former EastEnders star Anita Dobson is still smiling

- SUE CRAWFORD

It takes a lot to knock actress Anita Dobson. Naturally buoyant with a ready smile, she’s someone who lives life to the full, determined to squeeze every last bit of pleasure from every day.

So it comes as some surprise to hear that like millions of others throughout Britain, Anita found lockdown terribly tough.

She struggled with being confined to her London home, and then disaster struck when her husband, Queen guitarist Brian May, suffered a heart attack, an agonising compressed sciatic nerve and a stomach haemorrhage.

Anita, who stars in the new ITV crime drama The Long Call, says, ‘I love life. I love people, social gatherings, theatre and showbiz – I love living. That’s not to say when life throws me a curveball, it doesn’t knock me over.

‘During the pandemic, for one. None of us could have predicted how we would react. And then my husband had a heart attack, sciatica and a haemorrhage, and I suddenly went from being a working actress to being a cleaner, cook and carer. Not a role I’m easily castable for!’ she adds with a wry smile.