Miriam Margolyes: 'We'll all die but I'm not going yet'

Miriam Margolyes is performing a show about her love of Charles Dickens at the Fringe this year

It was Mark Twain who once said that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

But when newspaper reports suggested Miriam Margolyes was unable to be at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year because she was at death's door, she took to social media to denounce them.

"I was furious. It's weird when you read that you're about to die. We're all dying. We all know that. But not yet," she said.

Now 84, she has returned for a second year with a show about herself, and her love of Charles Dickens.

"I have a passion for him, which has only increased. And there's still so much that I've got to read," she said.

"He wrote over 14,000 letters and I haven't included any of the letters, because there isn't time. But I want to read them, so I'm still smashed on him really."

She won an LA Critics Circle award for her performance as Flora Finching in the 1988 film adaptation of Little Dorrit and often brings to life other Dickens women including Little Nell, Ms Havisham, Mrs Gamp and Mrs Micawber.

She says she's surprised to find herself in her 80s making a living from both writing and acting.

"I never thought I'd be able to do that, but you've discovered as you get older that there are possibilities," she said.

"And that's what I want to absolutely tell people who are over 80. You haven't finished."

Glaswegian roots

Born in Oxford in 1941, her father was a merchant navy doctor who grew up in the Gorbals area of Glasgow and as she talks about him, she naturally slips back into the accent he kept for all of his 96 years.

In 2002, she was back in the city for a play, and decided to look up the house in Pollokshields where her parents lived before moving to Oxford.

"I always remember I knocked on the door of the house where they had lived," she recalled

"And the lady who opened it said Oh, what are you doing here?

"And I said, 'Well, I'm actually working in the vagina monologues'.

"And as soon as I said vagina, she shut the door in case the neighbours heard because you don't say vagina in Pollokshields."

Margolyes with comedy critic Gayle Anderson and actor Brian Cox

Margolyes is famous for her choice vocabulary, and as the social media retort illustrates, she's not shy about speaking out. I ask if that's a benefit of age.

"I'm sorry to say I've always been like that," she said.

"And I'm very watchful now, because it's so second nature.

"I don't want to upset people but I get pleasure out of these naughty words."

She added: "I think they're so descriptive and they give everybody a bit of a thrill and I like to see people shocked, I have to say."

'Nobody is going to cancel me'

Her fourth book, The Little Book of Miriam, will be released in the autumn accompanied by a tour of the UK to promote it.

"It's for the lavatory and it's alphabetical," she said.

"It's designed for constipation, so that people will keep coming back and stay to read it."

As a high-profile Jewish woman, she has been criticised for her stance on Gaza.

There have been calls for her to be stripped of her OBE because she compared the Israeli government's actions to the Nazis during the Holocaust in an interview with the Big Issue.

At the time, she said: "I cannot bear to think that my people are doing exactly the same thing to another nation."

But she is adamant she opposes Israel's role in the conflict.

"They talk about cancel, being cancelled, but nobody's going to cancel me, I'm not having it," she said.

"I don't think people should use that expression. Everybody should be able to express their opinion.

"What Israel is doing to Palestine is wicked and it's totally against our upbringing as Jews."

Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits is at Pleasance at EICC, Pentland Theatre, Edinburgh until 24 August.