Miriam Margolyes interview: ‘John Cleese is irrelevant now – his personality has shrivelled’

• “I’m not a comedian,” says Miriam Margolyes, mildly affronted, when I bring up the c-word in her study in Clapham, south-west London. We’re surrounded by piles of books, scripts, artworks, photographs and awards (including the Bafta she won in 1994 for Best Supporting Actress in The Age of Innocence), and at the centre of it all, this provocative, colourful, irrepressibly funny octogenarian. She’s already made one of the most unrepeatable remarks I’ve ever heard – involving herself, a different