Angela Rippon on making her acting debut in Father Brown: 'I was absolutely thrilled!'

"I'm a huge fan of Father Brown, and I've been watching since it started. My agent knows this, and she rang me and said, 'Ange, they'd like you to do an appearance in one of the Father Browns', and I was absolutely thrilled! I've done odd appearances in other things like Midsomer Murders, but I've always been a newsreader or an interviewer or a reporter — so, doing my job, but within the construct of a drama. But this time, they wanted me to play a character — I'm The Dancing Duchess, which I thought was hysterical! What a thrill, and what a compliment. As someone who loves the programme anyway, to be asked to do something a little bit different was lovely."

"Well, she's a bit grand — but not so much that she's unapproachable! She obviously loves dance, and she loves people. Without giving away too much of the storyline, she's got this rather unpleasant grandson that she has to try and keep in check. I've only got two little tiny scenes, so we're not talking an epic performance here! [laughs] But it was lovely to be asked to do it."

"I did amateur dramatics when I left school. When I joined my first newspaper, the woman with whom I worked in the photographic department was the leading light of a local drama group in Plymouth called the Western College Players, and when I rocked up as a 17-year-old in the office, she sort of grabbed me and said, 'we need young people in the drama group', and that was that! I was with them for about four or five years, I think — I played Cathy in 'Wuthering Heights' and Eve in 'All About Eve', but of course when I went off to work in telly, I couldn't do it any more. But I had huge fun doing that, and this was like the amateur coming full-circle, never ever thinking I'd be asked to do something like that on the telly."

"Oh goodness, no, I wouldn't be so presumptuous! It's a tough and overcrowded profession, and there are lots of really brilliant people in it who deserve to be there and don't need an interloper like me. If I was asked to do any more, I would say yes for the sheer fun of it, but no, I don't have any ambitions in that area. But as with so much that's happened in my career, I didn't have an ambition to be a television presenter either. I wanted to be a photojournalist, and this came out of the blue, but I've been doing it for 59 years now!"

"Well, that's what I love! I always say I think I'm uniquely privileged in that I've managed throughout my career to be given the opportunity to do so many wonderful things, from news and current affairs through to light entertainment. I never forget that I do a job that I absolutely love, and that I know an awful lot of people would give their right arm for. I'm enormously grateful for all of the terrific and many, varied opportunities that I've been given in broadcasting to do things like Come Dancing, like the news, like Strictly Come Dancing, like Father Brown. I've had a lovely career, and I've loved every minute of it. I'm not only incredibly grateful, but continuously surprised that I'm still doing it!"