While TV and film are fun, versatile actress Patricia Hodge is relishing sinking her teeth into her latest wacky role in Dandy Dick. She spoke to Chris Price about getting married in Kent and why she refuses to see the Iron Lady.

Famous for roles such as Margaret Thatcher in The Falklands Play and more recently as disappointed mother Penny in BBC sitcom Miranda, Patricia Hodge is back on home turf – centre stage.

The Olivier Award-winning actress is staring as Georgiana in the historical British comedy Dandy Dick. It’s a part that should be warmly received by theatre-goers who lapped up Patricia’s recent performance in Calendar Girls.

“It’s a great role and a wacky role,” said the 65-year-old, letting out a girlish bit of excitement.

“It is one of those English eccentric characters which don’t come around too often. Theatre, particularly, is where you get the most interesting roles a lot of the time. Having said that I have enjoyed some lovely roles on TV but theatre is where you get more chance to practice your craft.”

Written in Brighton in 1887, Dandy Dick has thrown up a few challenges for Patricia, who stars opposite Nicholas Le Prevost as the Very Reverend Augustin Jedd. It was last performed in 1987 on a national tour starring Sir Anthony Quayle and Margaret Courtenay, with its final West End outing in 1973, starring Alastair Sim and Patricia Routledge.

“I didn’t see either of those,” said Patricia. “You always bring something very different to a character but in a case like this you do it as the playwright intended. It is not subject to interpretation really. It is about finding the laughs from these characters.”

The story follows a clergyman who preaches against the evils of horse racing and gambling, only to find himself risking everything on the races when his tearaway sister, played by Patricia, turns up. No doubt the play’s relevance to today’s heightened gambling culture was part of the reason it was chosen by TRB Productions.

“It’s very relevant,” said Patricia. “Of course it is different because it was written 125 years ago but it shows that human nature doesn’t change.”

Patricia married music publisher Peter Douglas Owen in Tunbridge Wells in 1976. Although she was born and raised in Grimsby and then Middlesex, she got married in Kent because her parents ran the White Hart in Brasted, near Sevenoaks. They had the reception at the hotel and Tunbridge Wells was where the nearest registry office was.

“I don’t know Kent as well as I would like to but Sevenoaks is very pretty and Chartwell [Winston Churchill’s former home near Westerham] was only up to road.”

Patricia is remembered by many as Betty, the wife of tycoon Robert Maxwell, in the BBC TV drama Maxwell opposite David Suchet and for her role as Margaret Thatcher in The Falklands Play. However, she made a point of not seeing Hollywood’s latest interpretation of the first female Prime Minister, The Iron Lady, for which Merryl Streep won a Best Actress Oscar.

“I didn’t see it. I thought it was unfair that they made that story in Margaret Thatcher’s lifetime. They should have had the dignity to wait until she had died. I get it that the film centres upon her incapability. I understand that is where the story came from – that she was once a great powerhouse and has been reduced to this fragility but the fact she is still alive and suffering I thought was exploitative.”

She added: “Anyone who has ever played Margaret Thatcher could not but have respect for her. It doesn’t matter what your politics are or what you think about the decisions she made, you have to have respect for her courage in being the first woman prime minister and her conviction.”

Dandy Dick, starring Patricia Hodge and Nicholas Le Prevost, runs at Bromley’s Churchill Theatre from Tuesday, July 24 to Saturday, July 28. Tickets £15 to £35. Box office 0844 871 7627.