It drives her mad because she can no longer do the things she wants.”Plus ca change … she echoes the complaint regularly made by contemporary middle-aged actresses. Yet now in her fifties, Ms Gish is delighted that so far this sidelining has not been reflected in her own experience. “I haven’t found that in the theatre and I feel very fortunate. But it wasn’t until about 1981 that I started to evolve as a career actress rather than as a jobbing actress. Everything I’ve done since then have been very particular choices.”She is consistently drawn towards those roles where people are what she terms “fatally flawed”. “She was the noted tragedian of the time and went on and on until she was retired in favour of younger models.

That is not to say you wouldn’t recognise Ms Gish from occasional appearances on the television but critical acclaim has always centred upon her appearances on stage. Last year she won an Olivier Award for her portrayal of Joanne in the musical Company. On Sunday she appears in a new April de Angelis play, Playhouse Creatures, at the Old Vic, which has opened to excellent reviews. She plays Mrs Betterton, one of the first ever actresses in the 1660s permitted on to the British stage after Charles II relaxed the men- only rule.
Renowned for her depiction of Lady Macbeth, Mary Betterton was married to actor-manager Thomas Betterton, the same Betterton who gives his name to the street in Covent Garden. Blonde and ample-bosomed, her neck still dusted with stage white powder she speaks as one who has spent more than 30 years in the theatre.

“I LOVE the theatre – I feel my feet grow out of the boards,” she declares, impassionato. Come to the year’s richest celebration of letters and meet your heroes, literary and beyond.. Sheila Gish takes a sweeping look around the cramped confines of the poky room backstage at the Old Vic. Taking part are Edna O’Brien, John Banville, Roy Foster, Colm Toibin, Aidan Higgins, Dermot Healy, Ciaran Carson, Maurice Leitch and others.Discussing the theme of Empire and afterwards are Arundhati Roy, Jonathan Dimbleby, Trevor Royle, John Keay, Mukul Kesavan, Patrick French, Sunil Khilnani, Sara Banerji, Amit Chaudhuri, William Dalrymple and Githa Hariharan.A plunge into the Literature of Decadence and fin de siecle corruption, from the infamous 1890s to its fleeting essence today. With Charles Nicholl on Rimbaud, Philip Hoare on Wilde’s Last Stand, Matthew Sturgis on Beardsley, Alain de Botton on Proust, Gilbert Adair on Frenchness and the Decadence Cabaret, starring Will Self, Fiona Pitt-Kethley, Snoo Wilson and a Pandora’s Box of nasty surprises…The largest-ever book bonanza for children, Book It! features dozens of events and popular authors for children from two to 12 including Wally, Spot, Pingu, Kipper, Maisy the Mouse – and a roomful of live animals…For the first time the festival will spill across the city of Cheltenham bringing events to bars, clubs, restaurants, galleries – and the streets themselves.Don’t miss out.

With Michael Palin, Roy Strong, Ian Hislop, Rick Stein, Nicola Horlick, Gerald Kaufman, Jack Russell, Tim Pigott-Smith, Keith Waterhouse, Edwina Currie…100 years after Yeats began the Celtic revival, we welcome the cream of modern Hibernian literati. More than 300 writers, from Michigan to Madras, will converge on the beautiful Gloucestershire city to take part in more than 150 events in 10 days. Among the highlights:

Readings from their new work by the premier league of British novelists, including Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Rose Tremain, Melvyn Bragg, PD James, Louis de Bernieres, Michele Roberts, Sebastian Faulks, Candia McWilliam, Rachel Cusk and Booker shortlistees Jim Crace and Tim Parks.
Poetry recitals, from Australia’s “redneck” genius, Les A Murray and Ireland’s controversial Paul Durcan to the unclassifiable stand-up surrealist John Hegley, taking in Christopher Reid, Don Paterson, Lavinia Greenlaw, Adrian Mitchell, Sarah Maguire and many others along the way.A riot of celebrity bestsellers meet their readers. “There will be life casts of me in bronze called Second Skin, on sale for pounds 10,000, pounds 25,000 or pounds 50,000,” he says. “So I’ll be there in bronze if not in person.”Call the Yemen Festival hotline on 0171-354 4141.

Britain’s biggest-ever literary carnival opens on 10 October. The Cheltenham Festival of Literature hits its 48th year with a spectacularly rich line- up of events. It’s still untouched and beautiful.”The festival features such diverse aspects of Yemeni culture as dagger dancing, Yemeni banquets and documentaries on aspects of Islam. Hamed himself features in the festival, in a photographic exhibition of Yemenis in Britain by Monica Fritz.While Hamed himself is “not allowed” to attend the exhibition, being just weeks before his next big fight, he is sending his brother instead.But the wealthier visitors to the festival may actually get to take Prince Naseem home. At the President’s request, he recently helped boost democratic efforts there.