Maureen Lipman - “Inside I still feel 14!”

(Image credit: CAMERA PRESS/Andrew Crowley)

Maureen Lipman returns to her childhood home of Hull to meet senior citizens in the City of Culture

She turned 70 last year, but her acting and writing careers are keeping Maureen Lipman as busy as ever – and that’s the way she likes it.

“I do too much – I’m continually running on a reserve tank,” she admits as she talks to TV Times about her latest project, BBC1’s Holding Back the Years, in which famous faces look at aspects of life for today’s senior citizens in the UK.

In the programme, Maureen returns to Hull, where she grew up, to find out how the over-60s there are keeping busy and socially engaged – whether it’s playing bingo or, for a group of like-minded men, tinkering about in a super-sized shed.

The spritely 70-year-old says she still feels young at heart. “I spoke to some 14-year-old schoolgirls when I was at a literary festival in Gibraltar last year,” she reveals. “I told them: ‘When you’re 70, I want you to remember the grey-haired woman who came to your school and told you that she feels 14 inside, and she will till the day she dies.’”

Holding Back the Years premieres on BBC1 at 9.15am on Monday 27 March

Ian MacEwan
Senior Writer

Ian writes about TV and film for TV Times, What’s on TV and TV & Satellite Week magazines. He co-hosts the weekly TV streaming podcast, Bingewatch.