Modern-day celebrities could learn a thing or two from outrageous octogenarian Miriam Margolyes

The latest Imagine… film, Miriam Margolyes: Up for Grabs (BBC One), was a quietly revealing portrait. That doesn’t seem very apposite for an actress who delights in being provocative, and who has hit her stride late in life as an outrageous chat show guest. Richard E Grant, a former co-star, described her thusly: “I think her volume button fell off at birth. She is like a five-year-old masquerading as an octogenarian.” 

The pair appeared together in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of The Age of Innocence in 1993; Grant recalled that, when Margolyes went into hair and make-up, she decided to enliven proceedings by lifting up her T-shirt and flashing her breasts. Margolyes explained that she had just wanted to cheer everyone up at the end of a long day.

However, what became clear from the programme was that this behaviour is a cover-up. Margolyes spoke of the pain and humiliation that she felt as a teenager at school dances, a “fat and ungainly” wallflower who was never asked to dance. Her subsequent career in the spotlight, we learned, was about “seeking attention and approbation and love”.

That is not confined to the screen, or appearances on The Graham Norton Show. The film began, amusingly, with presenter Alan Yentob lurking behind a hedge while watching Margolyes sitting on the steps outside her front door and engaging passers-by in conversation. Apparently, she does this often.

Her career is impressive – this profile barely scratched the surface but mentioned Blackadder, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Call the Midwife, Harry Potter, various Dickens adaptations and her Bafta for The Age of Innocence. Most people are aware that she was the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny in the famous 1980s adverts, but did you also know that she voiced the border collie in Babe, a PG Tips chimp and a sultry model in the 1970s ads for Manikin Cigars? The directorof the latter, upon hearing Margolyes, marvelled: “I can’t believe that voice has come from that body.”

Margolyes is pathologically honest, admitting here that she once struck her paralysed mother when the stress of being her carer became too much. She was frank about everything else, too, from her career insecurities to sex, and admitted to feeling both bemused and delighted by her latest stage of fame as she enters her ninth decade. Some people find her too coarse and too much. But in a world where so many celebrities are PR-trained bores, let us be thankful for one who makes an effort to keep us entertained.