‘My first screen kiss was in a cowshed!’ Lesley Manville on her greatest roles – and why sex scenes for over-50s are booming

In the last 15 years, she has gone from respected actor to stratospheric, garlanded star.

Now she is back on TV as a chic sleuth in a racy car – despite being terrible at guessing whodunnit It is high summer and, while Lesley Manville may be suffering a bit with hay fever and the heat (“I’m so white, all I do is burn”), she doesn’t do wilting.

Soon to head outside to tend to the ailing garden of her London home, she is enjoying a rare period of rest after six almost unbroken months of Oedipus on Broadway and then Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National.

She keeps, incidentally, the Tony she won for playing Jocasta in Oedipus on a shelf by the computer, “next to its friend, Larry Olivier” – an Olivier awarded for the same role.

“You don’t go into a job thinking about awards,” she says, before grinning conspiratorially.

“Listen, you don’t say to an Olympian, ‘Oh, is it OK that you didn’t win?’ Yes, you like to win!” Continue reading...