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Actress Celia Imrie: It’s time to seize the day

LONDON — Celia Imrie, 62, is one of Britain’s most cherished performers. Best known for comedy, she has brought her impish charm to everything from Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques sketches, in which she played the lovesick Miss Babs, to the Bridget Jones Diary films and Calendar Girls (she was, famously, the model who required “bigger buns”). Now, she has taken a new direction with the publication of her first novel, Not Quite Nice, which follows the adventures of an older British woman who suddenly ups sticks to the Cote d’Azur. In a delicious touch, the action is punctuated with recipes for the local dishes that are cooked by the characters so that readers can, if they wish, cook along with the action.

Celia Imrie thinks food is one of the great joys of life.
Photo: Reuters

Celia Imrie thinks food is one of the great joys of life.
Photo: Reuters

LONDON — Celia Imrie, 62, is one of Britain’s most cherished performers. Best known for comedy, she has brought her impish charm to everything from Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques sketches, in which she played the lovesick Miss Babs, to the Bridget Jones Diary films and Calendar Girls (she was, famously, the model who required “bigger buns”). Now, she has taken a new direction with the publication of her first novel, Not Quite Nice, which follows the adventures of an older British woman who suddenly ups sticks to the Cote d’Azur. In a delicious touch, the action is punctuated with recipes for the local dishes that are cooked by the characters so that readers can, if they wish, cook along with the action.

“A few years ago somebody said, ‘Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography?’ Which I did, and I enjoyed doing it,” she said. “Then somebody said, ‘Well, now you’ve done that, how about a novel?’ And I heard myself saying, why not? Truly, I have enormous respect for writers now, because it’s tough. Every day you have to do a little something.”

Imrie’s book was partially shaped by her own experiences in Nice, where she bought an apartment five years ago and where she now spends as much time as she can. Food is a central part of the book — the protagonist Theresa makes friends by running a cooking club for other expats and threaded throughout the book are classic French recipes. “If I think of my tastiest meals ever, they are all in France. They always have the freshest ingredients and that’s the secret. There’s a famous market in Nice: You walk past a stall and the smell of the strawberries — I promise you, I’ve never smelt anything like it. It’s like a new perfume.”

Imrie’s love of food is remarkable, given her conflicted background with eating. As a young woman, she developed anorexia and at 14 found herself in the psychiatric wing of St Thomas’ Hospital in London, where she was subjected to electro-convulsive therapy. But she bats talk of her past away. “I’ve always loved food. I think food is one of the great joys of life, I really do,” she said. “It makes me very unhappy when I see young girls walk past in a terrible state.”

Imrie’s new film is The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the sequel to the 2012 hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The films, which follow a group of retirees in India, have a cast that reads like a Who’s Who of over-50s acting talent: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and in the new film, grey-haired heart-throb Richard Gere. Acting alongside Gere, Imrie deadpanned, was an experience she undertook on behalf of the “whole female population”.

Imrie hopes the Exotic Marigold Hotel films might finally open doors to a Hollywood career. “I’m having a go. I wish I’d done it earlier. I think my passport is these two films, because they were so loved worldwide, but most particularly in America. It’s much easier for me to go with something as, in my opinion, fabulous as those films, than to just go hawking myself around, which is quite embarrassing.”

Does she share the oft-voiced fears of older actresses that there are no decent parts for women of a certain age? “No,” she said firmly. “I think Exotic Marigold will do an awful lot for older actors. It might, with any luck, start a bit of a trend.”

Her big hope is that she is asked to play someone a little less amiable than her usual characters. “I would quite like to swerve off in a different direction and play someone quite horrible and evil,” she said. “I feel as if I’ve got that in me, but it’s not been seen yet.”

In her book, Imrie describes Theresa as a “get-up-and-go kind of person” who “dreaded days when she might wake up and have no reason to get out of bed”. She admits that she shares more than a little in common with her heroine. Imrie has always been what she calls a “dawn gal” (she likes to get up at 4am to make the cake for a birthday) but a serious health scare in 2005, when she suffered two pulmonary embolisms, has made her even more determined to squeeze the most out of life. “It led me to really seize the day and challenge myself to do as many things as I possibly can,” she said. “I never thought in a million years that I’d write a book.

“It just gives you a kick up the bum — makes you think, ‘If you’re going to do it, get on with it now’.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

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