Old Rage: 'One of our best-loved actor's powerful riposte to a world driving her mad’ - DAILY MAIL

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She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. Have to say I skipped through some of her real rants but being an avid reader, I have never given up on a book in my 73 years. Written during lockdown, “Old Rage” was born out of this extended time of isolation, giving Sheila time to reflect on her acting career, her family and her strongly-held beliefs; many of which might surprise or even offend some readers, but Sheila Hancock tells it like it is. Old Rage” is in no way a metaphorical title: this is a brutally honest and fiercely funny book by a lady who has pretty much seen it all, and may yet have some life left in her. So why, at 89, having sailed past supposedly disturbing milestones – 50, 70 even 80 – without a qualm, did she suddenly feel so furious?

In December 2017 in the Diary entry Sheila’s Aunt Billie had been moved into a hospital and was apparently fading fast. As one of many who found cathartic comfort in Sheila’s book Just the Two of Us, this is another incredibly honest and heartfelt read. And then there is the revelations of a personal life lived through family bereavement, illness and crisis. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘Work keeps me going, but I also wish that wasn’t the case’: Sheila Hancock. I confess I’ve not read any of her three previous efforts but, after digesting this diarised account of her latter years, I can certainly handle a bigger dose of Sheila.In her gut, though, she knows where she belongs: “If I see a gang of kids in the street I’m not a bit frightened. I spent all my time with a tooth prop in my mouth, a device that was supposed to help with your vowels. I think I know the answer to this question, but her relish is so enjoyable, I want to be the perfect audience.

Old Rage by Sheila Hancock is a funny, poignant and feisty memoir of the actress, who is now approaching her nineties. Today is particularly piercing on this score, the death of Denis Waterman, Thaw’s co-star in The Sweeney, having just been announced. But she can at least take a good long look at life – her work and family, her beliefs (many of them the legacy of her wartime childhood) and, uncomfortable as it might be to face, her future.

Absolutely brilliant book and certainly reflects many of the feelings I and my friends felt (and are still feeling) during Covid and even now. Sheila Hancock, one of Britain's most highly regarded and popular actors, received a Damehood for services to drama and charity in 2021. Oh, I do agree – and the wonderful thing about getting older is that you can be a bit cantankerous and odd. She doesn’t shy away from telling her own opinions and that’s missing in todays world when everyone is so scared of saying the wrong thing. From Brexit to politicians to Covid she seems to be saying the world (and Britain in particular ) is a horrible place and she can't wait to get out of it.

But every page of Sheila Hancock's new memoir shimmers with laughter, defiance and profound insights into life as an old RAGE pensioner ― Mail on Sunday --This text refers to the hardcover edition. Reading about the lockdowns brought back a lot of memories as well as anger and a sense that we need to change. This is a lady who has seen World War, learned to use Zoom and WhatsApp, acted on stage with the greats and walks the deserted streets of London during the pandemic. Old Rage" is a beautifully written and inspiring book full of profound wisdom, kindness and razor-sharp awareness.Published before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and crowning of King Charles III, I wondered if she will follow up on the future of British royal monarchs. Hancock as Mrs Lovett, with Denis Quilley as the demon barber, in Sweeney Todd at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 1980. She also worries, in the book’s opening pages, that she is undeserving of the damehood she was awarded in 2021.

Sheila Hancock is one of Britain's most highly regarded and popular actors, and received an OBE for services to drama in 1974 and a CBE in 2011. One of the reasons I was late to meet you is that I can’t dress any more,” she says, exasperatedly (our conversation takes place in the London studio where she is to have her photograph taken). In her latest book, the grand dame of British acting, Sheila Hancock, takes vicious yet educated swipes at Brexit, bereavement, British television and the state of the nation compared to her wartime childhood. In 2019 she was starring with James Nesbitt in Tim Firth’s musical comedy This Is My Family in Chichester when she fell in the bathroom of her digs, and had to have 10 stitches in her head.At Lisson Grove market [near Paddington], the traders are all [she slips into cockney] ‘Allo, Sheila! Witnessing and then accepting the decay of your physical self as you age is a brutal reality and it's captured well in Sheila's diaries. Sheila Hancock definitely isn't letting things pass her by if they frustrate her or, as a country, we haven't learnt from previous experiences. At first I was a little unsettled by the format - it is loose and fluid like a conversation which switches backwards and forwards between dates and ideas. Hancock, who kept wondering why the producers hadn’t cast Judi Dench until she found herself lying in a freezing cold sleeping bag 2,000 feet up on the side of a mountain, believes she is the oldest person ever to have done this – though as she admits in Old Rage, the short flight in the helicopter that retrieved her from the summit was, in the end, far more terrifying than the climb.