WITH more than fifty years in showbusiness Prunella Scales is easily categorised as one of the country's best loves actresses.

She's trodden the boards all over the world, graced many screen and even delighted a generation as the lovable Dottie in the Tesco ads.

But to be honest the actress will always be one woman to most people.

Beehived to the hilt, with a laugh like a machine gun stuck on automatic fire she will ever be remembered, with cigarette in hand, as Sybil, the battleaxe spouse to John Cleese's hapless hotelier Basil Fawlty.

Cleese might have got the big laughs, but many critics have identified Prunella's Sybil as the character that held everything together as the real engine of the comedy sit com Fawlty Towers.

It is something Prunella dismisses straight away, by describing Cleese as "an extraordinary talent."

"He has tremendous and amazing speed and the filming was very pressurised as it was recorded in front of a live audience but it was certainly fun for me to be able to crack the whip," she recalls.

"We only did 12 episodes so it is remarkable that it is still so recognised," she responds politely to my continued questions on the sit com classic that made her a national institution, although you get the sense she tires a little of being asked about one role in the hundreds she has played over the years.

"You are very lucky if you get a part in a popular television series, it is a very lucky thing indeed," she comments.

Prunella was born into an acting family. Her father was a travelling cotton salesman but her mother was an actress before Prunella and her brother Tim were born.

By the age of eight Prunella already had dreams of an actor's life.

"Actors go into it because it gives us the chance to play people a great deal more interesting than we are and to say things infinitely wittier and more intelligent than we could think of ourselves," she laughs.

Her first major TV break came with Richard Briers in Marriage Lines and she continues to count herself lucky to have made a career from something she passionately enjoys.

"I'm lucky to have be working more often than not, but I do feel guilty sometimes as it means I'm taking parts away from other actresses."

Aside from her famous screen roles Prunella's acting passion lies in the theatre and her current role brings her to the Palace Theatre, Westcliff tonight (Thurs).

Taking in the titular role in Benedict West's series of monologues called Gertrude's Secret she will appear alongside former Eastenders actresses Natalie Cassidy in what is billed as " a frequently hilarious yet often terrifying show" for one night at the London Road venue.

It is a family affair for the veteran actress as the playwright is a cousin be marriage - Prunella has been married to fellow actor Timothy West for more than 40 years and they have two sons, Sam West, also now a well-known actor and Joe, an academic.

"It is funny really as I remember Benedict as a baby in arms and now I am performing his work and he bosses me around," she laughs.

"It is a great show though, very clever yet quite painful in places and I enjoy performing it."

For Prunella stage work offers the chance to indulge in "yet another aspect of the art form".

She says:"The thing I enjoy about being on stage is the repetition. I think you can learn a lot as an actor.

"I find one learns so much when you have to do it again. I love the routine of the theatre, it is not true of all actors but I do enjoy it."

"The joy of being an actor is to deliver good writing to people."