Sweetie, Darling Jennifer's Still Ab Fab!

She’s older, wiser and taking on her biggest challenge yet − a dramatic role

- Elizabeth Day

Jennifer Saunders recently found her five-year-old grandson Bertie staring at her oddly. “I said, ‘Is there something wrong? What is it?’” Bertie kept looking at his grandmother, his gaze focused at a point just below her chin.

“Are you growing a beard?” Jennifer recounts he asked, breaking into laughter. “I had one little black hair here,” she points at the underside of her chin. “But I couldn’t see it. It made me laugh so much.”

At 61, Jennifer is strikingly gorgeous – chin fluff and all. She arrives at her Central London private members’ club with hair that looks tousled yet blow-dried, wearing trainers and a flappy jacket-cumcardigan that fashion journalists would call ‘artfully draped’.

It’s 1.30pm and the first thing she does is order a gin and tonic, which arrives in a giant fishbowl of a glass. “Oh lovely,” she says, taking a swig.

Her skin is so unlined and clear that, although it’s not normal to start an interview by rhapsodising about a woman’s epidermis, specifics of her routine are needed.

“I do as little as possible,” she says. “I have always used Clarins cleanser and toner and a light moisturiser… I think it’s just genes and luck. My grandmother had very good skin.”

Does she consider herself beautiful? “Oh. Um. Not really. I’m always frustrated with various bits and bobs. I actually don’t worry about being older. It catches you by surprise sometimes. You know, you’re walking towards the mirror going, ‘There’s an old woman! Oh, it’s me.’”