Cole stars in So Long Life by Peter Nichols which centres on 85-year-old Alice's birthday party. But the party is not a happy one. As Alice eavesdrops, with her eyes closed, she learns more than she wants to know about the complex relationships and jealousies between her children. And they all, except her granddaughter, want to put her in a home.

It is a hard-hitting, dark comedy and airs problems people have with their older relatives.

Cole said: "It's about the family and how they cope with mum who I have to say in this instance is a difficult old cow but she is also very funny and she is actually fighting for her life."

Alice is fighting not to give up her home and all the things around her. Cole can sympathise: "At the moment I would say if it had to be, then that's okay. But who knows what I'll feel like in 20 years' time. We can't really know these things, I think, until we're faced with them."

Alice fights tooth and nail convinced she can cope alone at home. It's a modern dilemma and Cole is not anxious members of the audience might find the story too close for comfort. "If you're absolutely sure you've done the right thing then you may be moved by it, maybe slightly upset, but you don't have to be terribly upset."

The 60-year-old actress has faced the same situation many times. She said her performance is based on knowing, not simply imagining. "There is always an element of guilt. My mum is in care now and it had to be because she wasn't able to look after herself 24 hours a day. So it had to be. There is always a residue of guilt.

"Certainly if I didn't know the play and went to watch it I would find it extremely funny and quite moving and I would sort of understand both sides of the story."

Most of us will be familiar with Stephanie Cole from TV roles in Keeping Mum and Waiting for God, for which she won the British Comedy Award for Best Actress. She seems to specialise in difficult elderly ladies but the actress insists this is not the case. She said: "Many plays and things on television revolve around the dynamics in a family. But that's the only link really."

She likes Alice and sees her as a funny, feisty old woman but would not like to spend too much time with her and would definitely hate to be related to her! There is also a sense of the character's complexity in her description of how the emotionally-damaged Alice who has tried to overcome her feelings of inadequacy all her life. But Alice's strength is her deeply comic ability to blurt out indiscretions at the most inopportune moment with touching humour.

September 13, 2001 10:25