"I was called a heartthrob, but you can't take that stuff too seriously" Robert Powell speaks ahead of appearing at Westcliff's Palace Theatre

He may be one of Britain’s most well respected thespians. And he may be married to a foxy dancer from Pan’s People.

But he does confess to still being shy.

We were having a chinwag ahead of his performance at the Palace Theatre next week, where he’ll be playing Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s play Black Coffee, and had hit on the subject of fame and how he deals with it.

Robert, who shot to global fame thanks to his role in the epic TV film Jesus of Nazareth, said: “You learn to live with it and you have to learn to do that sooner rather than later.

“I think I learned at about 24, when my face was on the cover of these girl magazines and all that kind of thing. You learn there are two people – who you are, and who people think you are.

“You’ve got the press calling you a heartthrob and all that kind of stuff, but you can’t take that on. If you do then it’s really dangerous, because really fame doesn’t change anything at all. I was just a normal guy who still went down the pub and played darts with the lads, like I always did.”

I’d read about a lovely anecdote about Robert being too shy to ask his now wife out, so he asked all her friends out for dinner too, just so he could get to her.

“Oh yes,” he said, “I’d always fancied Babs having seen her for years on Top of the Pops dancing with Pan’s People. I wanted to ask her out, but I was too shy, so invited the whole troupe out to dinner.

“I was, and still am, very shy. I think lots of people are pretty shy, but it’s about how you cope with it. If you want to get on with your life, it’s what you have to do.”

Robert’s wise thinking obviously saw him go far. He’d always loved acting since he was little, and performed in various plays while at grammar school. He continued as an undergraduate, but actually started studying law.

He said: “It’s complicated to explain, but a chance came up to swap courses. Unfortunately, I hadn’t read English literature, Latin and Greek, which is what they wanted, so I was left in limbo.

“I needed to get a job and asked around, and then I got a job as an assistant stage manager at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, where I got to act as well, a small part as a spear holder in King Lear. Anyway, it went from there.”

And it did too, with the roles flooding in over the years.

By the time he played Jesus Christ in Jesus of Nazareth in 1977, a two-part television film with an all-star cast, for which he was nominated for a Bafta award and collected the TV Times Best Actor award, he was already quite well-known in Britain.

He said: “The difference it made was overseas – it created a bit of interest in America and Europe.”

I wondered, aside from the fame, how Robert deals with being recognised on a daily basis.

He said: “Again, it is something you live with. It can be inconvenient at times – people do stop and stare or ask for your autograph while you’re just shopping in Waitrose or they come and hold up their phones in front of you and start taking your photograph. But you do livewith it.”

Such success, though, has meant Robert can have the luxury of picking and choosing his roles.

He said: “To be honest, I don’t take it on unless it appeals to me, because unless it’s going to entertain me, how can I entertain the audience?”

I asked if taking on the role in the Detectives – a comedy TV hit series about two bumbling police officers – in which he appears opposite his good friend Jasper Carrott, was something he took on because he wanted the role, or because Carrott is such a good friend of his.

He said: “I took it because it was quite a novelty, something quite new and different.

“When it came up my request was not to play the straight man to Jasper, because I wouldn’t have wanted that. In fact, he gave me the choice to play whatever character I wanted and they were both fun.

“It was five series filmed over five years and I never stopped laughing!”

Robert’s filmography and list of TV and stage productions is too lengthy to mention.

He has also done a lot of voiceover work.

“The hardest by far is theatre by a long way,” said Robert, who will be seventy this year, when I asked him if he had a preferred genre to work within. “It’s six days a week, it goes on a long time and from the moment youwake up, it waits for you.”

His current theatre role as Poirot has involved some pleasant discovery.

Prior to it he had never actually read an Agatha Christie book or, rather surprisingly perhaps, watched Poirot on television.

He said: “When I was younger it didn’t appeal to me so much, and I was so busy working anyway, so the idea of watching a two-hour long TV drama was too much.

“When I was asked to read Poirot, I asked my daughter about Agatha Christie and what book I should read.

“She recommended the Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced Poirot.

“I was impressed by what a good writer Christie was.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to go away and start reading the lot, but I am enjoying the role very much.”

BLACK COFFEE Palace Theatre, Westcliff, Monday, March 17, until Saturday, March 22. Tickets, £17.50-27.50 from 01702 351135 or southendtheatres.org.uk