Dame Maureen Lipman has been a fixture of stage and screen for over five decades. She has been a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company; she is well known for her roles in acclaimed films like Educating Rita and The Pianist; and most recently she has had an award-winning run in soap Coronation Street. For a generation she will always be 'Beattie': the grandmother from the BT adverts.

On the podcast, Maureen talks to Katy Balls about her journey from 'the cobbler of Kazimierz Dolny to the cobbles of Corrie'. They discuss selling comedy as a commodity, whether you can separate art from the artist and her most recent role in a Christmas panto. 

Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Photo credit: Jay Brooks.