REPORTER Becky Carr spoke to Keeping Up Appearances star Josephine Tewson ahead of her Bewdley Festival appearance.

DESPITE her 50-year career on stage and screen, Josephine Tewson admitted she still gets nervous ahead of her theatre talks and after-dinner speeches.

The 74-year-old said the difference between performing in a play and speaking to a 200-strong audience about her life is that she hasn’t learnt a script for the latter.

“In a play, you know what should happen and know when the audience should laugh and when they should cry.

“You’ve got other people there too. It’d be easier if I learnt something. I tend to forget the names of the people I’m talking about so have to jot them down,” Tewson said.

The actress, known for her portrayals of Elizabeth in Keeping Up Appearances and Miss Davenport in Last of the Summer Wine, will be giving audience members a taste of her life including working with Ronnie Barker and appearing in some of Britain’s most loved sitcoms.

“I’ve got some wonderfully funny stories which are all true,” she added.

Tewson joked that the first time she was booked for a talk, she nearly cancelled and thought she would “throw herself into the Thames” if it went badly. Thankfully, people “seemed to enjoy it”.

It was in 1968, while performing Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, where she first met comedy legend Ronnie Barker.

After the play finished, Barker employed Tewson as he needed a girl to play the female parts in Frost on Sunday.

“He gave me an awful lot of work,” she added. “I haven’t worked with anyone that I didn’t enjoy working with. Actors are very understanding because we go through a crisis everytime there is a first night of a play “You really don’t get that in an office. Backstage, you’re frightened and you wonder what the hell you’re doing. You do it for the high afterwards, which is very addictive.”

Tewson admitted she is more comfortable on stage than TV as she knows how loud she needs to be and who the audience should direct their attention to.

After being asked if she watches her performances back on TV, she said: “It’s absolutely awful. You can’t see the reason why they gave you the job in the first place.

“You see the staring eyes, the pointed nose and double chin but then somebody tells you that’s probably why they cast you. You look right for the part.”

Josephine Tewson will be speaking at the Bewdley Baptist Church on Monday at 2.30pm.

For more information visit bewdleyfestival.org.uk