She famously stroked George Galloway like a cat in the Big Brother house, and now the fiery Rula Lenska is starring in a new musical about the menopause. She spoke to us about growing old disgracefully.

RULA Lenska might have just turned 60 but she's not ready to settle into frumpy clothes and comfortable shoes quite yet.

"Growing older is just a number," enunciated Rula in her voice so deep it catches you off-guard for a moment.

"Nowadays there are no rules.You can wear mini skirts into your 60s if you've got the legs for it. In my mother's day you got to a certain age and all of a sudden you were classed as an old woman. You were expected to start wearing tweed suits and forget being sexy or attractive to men."

The actress is currently starring in Hot Flush, a musical about the menopause, coming to Manchester Palace Theatre next week.

"The subject matter of Hot Flush is great because there are so few parts available for actresses of a certain age," said Rula.

"Nowadays there's more and more pressure on us not to be allowed to grow old gracefully as well. Everybody has to have plastic surgery and pretend they're not the age they are.

"This play tackles those subjects with humour and grace. It's about four very different women who form the Flush Club to make jokes about men and moan about the difficulties they're going through. It's a brand new musical, it's raunchy, sexy and very funny."

Rula herself isn't worried about pursuing eternal youth.

"I plan to grow old as disgracefully as possible," she laughed. "As I've aged my body doesn't obey me the way it used to. I have to be more moderate with some things.

"But as far as plastic surgery is concerned I won't get it done because I'm proud of my life showing in my face and I have to say, for the most part, the cosmetically enhanced face does look fake. A lot of producers moan about actors' faces having no expression nowadays because they've had too much surgery done. I do have Botox occasionally and I'm careful about creams and stuff like that but I'm not obsessive."

She said the thing that attracted her to Hot Flush was the challenge.

"I'm not really a singer but the other three women in the production are bona fide singers so it was the singing that was the hardest, but most interesting, thing for me."

Despite the subject matter, Rula insists men will love Hot Flush.

"Men I know have come to see it and they've enjoyed it a lot, particularly the gay brigade. They love it. It's sexy and it's not anti-male. We have a wonderful male character who steals the show in my opinion, so there is balance within the show."

Although the highlight of Rula's career came in the late '70s with a part in Rock Follies and a high-profile marriage to Dennis Waterman in the '80s, younger audiences will know her from her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006.

Rula doesn't regret her time in the house, but neither does she believe her career has benefited significantly because of it.

"I wouldn't say I'm not glad that I did it. I don't regret anything. It was a learning curve and it earned my charities an awful lot of money but, although it's done no harm, it's not done my career any particular good."

And that infamous cat scene with George Galloway MP?

"Oh that still gets mentioned all the time. I get people miaowing at me in the street, asking if I've seen George about lately. I haven't, no. We don't really hang around in the same circles."

See Rula Lenska in Hot Flush at Manchester's Palace Theatre from Monday, October 15 to Saturday, October 20. Call 0161 242 2524.