Old Rage: 'One of our best-loved actor's powerful riposte to a world driving her mad’ - DAILY MAIL

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Glass in hand, she is resplendent: a walking, talking advertisement for a good haircut – this, she insists, is the real secret of eternal youth – and an abiding interest in other people. So refreshing to read a book with a person's views and opinions written down exactly how they said them and felt them - she wrote the book as herself and didn't try to be anything or anyone else - loved it! so rapidly over the last few decade but Sheila’s “Old Rage” is a steadfastly honest piece of writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and laughed out loud at her references to various politicians. Reading about the lockdowns brought back a lot of memories as well as anger and a sense that we need to change. Views about Brexit, universal education, decent pay for NHS staff…punctuate memories of the author’s life, her family, her life on stage and the actors and mortals she has met along the way. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘Work keeps me going, but I also wish that wasn’t the case’: Sheila Hancock.Even among this starry crowd, her national treasure status is palpable; I’m surprised people aren’t elbowing me out of the way to get to her. Today is particularly piercing on this score, the death of Denis Waterman, Thaw’s co-star in The Sweeney, having just been announced. Her analysis of the political environment in the UK as well as the rest of the world is thoughtful and passionate. As Billie was in a ward of her own Sheila sat with Billie day and night singing to her and saying a childhood prayer to her, one that I truly loved, that was one my favourite parts in the book for loving the prayer.

There are references to the aches and pains of aging, falls and other illnesses, but above all this is the journal of a woman fiercely engaged with life. Have to say I skipped through some of her real rants but being an avid reader, I have never given up on a book in my 73 years. In 2019 she was starring with James Nesbitt in Tim Firth’s musical comedy This Is My Family in Chichester when she fell in the bathroom of her digs, and had to have 10 stitches in her head.

Following the death of her husband, John Thaw, she wrote a memoir of their marriage, The Two of Us , which was a no. Sheila doesn’t mince words in giving her opinions on the state of world and national affairs, while at the same time coping with advancing age (which doesn’t please her either). She is irreverent and funny when she refers to politicians and entertaining when she looks back at different actors that she has worked with over the years. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

It summed up a stage we were at: him being very sexy in leather, us spending money we’d never had before, and me driving him mad with my guidebooks. This tale is happy and sad in parts - just like life, and made me smile and also cringe in places - and it also made me think a bit more about how I behaved during our "lockdown" phases. Hancock as Mrs Lovett, with Denis Quilley as the demon barber, in Sweeney Todd at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 1980. I was probably scared, disappointed it was considered a flop; feeling I hadn’t done good service to it because I’d suffered terrible stage fright. I am a fan of Sheila’s work, and the work of her late husband John Thaw, and she’s always been a presence on British screens, so I was excited to read this.But these bands of gold stand as a reminder that she was born into a world that barely anyone remembers now. At first I was a little unsettled by the format - it is loose and fluid like a conversation which switches backwards and forwards between dates and ideas.

She has strong opinions and is not afraid to express them but I share many of them so the book appealed to me.I was a little disappointed overall, but there were some interesting passages and it definitely gives you a feel for the changes in the industry and in the world.