THE first time Miriam Margolyes came to the south west she was a teenager posing nude for Augustus John.

This time round, the ebullient actress is coming to Dorset with the one-woman show Dickens’ Women, in which she breathes life into 23 of the author’s most popular characters.

She has been touring the show on and off since 1991, first as a double-hander, more recently as a solo enterprise, and says she is ‘thrilled’ with the Olivier Award-nominated production’s success.

“I love Dickens and just saying his words makes me happy,” she said. “I also love communicating with my audience and this is a wonderfully communicative show because you talk directly to the audience.

“What he writes is do evocative and clear, funny and sad and his characters are enormously human, as was he.”

Miriam’s favourite character to play is ghoulish, manipulative Mrs Havisham from Great Expectations, who has taken over her affections from bibulous Mrs Gamp of Martin Chuzzlewit.

“Mrs Haversham just about closes the show,” she said. “She is a mix of malice and pathos. She is sad and evil because she is trying to distort a young woman’s emotions, which I think is very wicked. But then Dickens was obviously capable of distorting a young woman’s emotions too.

“I don’t think Dickens would have liked me – I’m too fat and inquisitive and he wouldn’t like that. He liked women without breasts. He liked them small and I’m not that.”

Miriam, who has wanted to be a performer all her life and confesses to ‘coming to life if someone is looking at me’, is taking Dickens’ Women all over the UK and then to America where she will tour until it wraps up in Chicago on Christmas Eve.

She has enjoyed a long and varied career – most recently she did the voiceover for the charming documentary Strictly Kosher about Manchester’s Jewish community – and being well-known has allowed her to offer support and give a voice to several charities and causes, not all of which have gained universal approval.

“I am proud of being Jewish but I am rather critical about Israel,” she said. “I don’t find it hard to separate the two but there are some people who express anti-Semitism as being anti-Israeli, but the two are very different.”

Whereas older audiences revere Miriam for her high calibre stage roles – Beckett with Mark Rylance, The Importance of Being Earnest opposite Lynn Redgrave – and stage roles that include a Bafta-winning turn as Mrs Mingott in The Age of Innocence, younger audiences know her as herbology teacher Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter film franchise.

“I wouldn’t say that Harry Potter was a career highlight, but it was certainly a financial highlight!” she laughed. “I have had quite a colourful life – it’s been pretty packed.”

Dickens’ Women is at Bridport Arts centre on July 10 at 7.45pm and is preceded by a meet Miriam Margolyes event at 11am at the same venue. Call 01308 424204 for tickets and full details.