THEATRE / On Theatre

In the middle of a run, how do actors spend their days? Get up late, do the odd voice-over, a spot of lunch maybe? On a two-week holiday while appearing in The Birthday Party at the National, Dora Bryan (right) took a cabaret booking aboard the Canberra, bound for the West Indies.

'I chat to the audience about my career and do numbers. Things from Hello Dolly, 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and a song called 'No Better Than She Should Be'. It's great fun. I'm doing it again next week in Basildon.'

Who else can boast a career spanning The Blue Lamp, bouncing up and down on a bogey-truck in The Great St Trinians' Train Robbery, a BAFTA for A Taste of Honey, The Alchemist, Victoria Wood and an MA from Manchester University? Anyone who caught her cult-making performance in the recent 70 Girls 70 - 'it was like having a party every night' - will know that she can run a show single-handed. And Pinter?

'I love every minute of it. I was so riveted during rehearsals, I didn't even do my knitting.'

There's no time for knitting now either. She's making Jim Cartwright's Bed for the BBC alongside Renee Asherson, Phyllis Calvert and Maurice Denham (amongst others). How many legends can you fit onscreen at once?

The Birthday Party returns to the National Theatre on 23 June

(Photograph omitted)