Beyond Paradise's Barbara Flynn: 'People worry about me living in the boat!'

"Martha is unbelievably busy in this series, and I think Anne is letting her and Humphrey have their space because of what they're doing with fostering. So when she finds this possibility that there might be something wrong with her, she goes into her own space. Then, of course, the one person who comes to her with honesty and genuine sweetness is of course Zoe: she's very outspoken and straight about it, and there is a genuine friendship there. That doesn't ever take over from Martha, but it is an interim help that takes Anne through what she sees as a little upset."

"Oh, very much! When Melina first appeared on set, I saw her in the distance and I thought, 'oh my goodness, that takes me back to when I was 21 or so, up in Manchester doing [ITV drama] A Family at War' — just going back to the beginning when you feel so incredibly excited and fresh. She has this marvellous energy that she gave to the set and all of us, quite divine. She's a real flower, she's lovely."

"Oh, Sally's a dream! I'm genuinely fond of her, and all of the scenes I have with her are amazing. Personally, she is just terrific. I don't think we'd worked together before; I'd seen her in Green Wing, which I just adored, and I adore woking with her now. There's been such a lot of growth in Anne and Martha's relationship, it's become much more personal. There were lovely scenes early on about the grief [following the off-screen death of Anne's husband, Martha's dad] and the change in their lives, but I think it's grown in a very positive and real way — it's not over-schmaltzy, it's very direct and honest, and one hopes that it connects with people's own lives."

"Well, it would be lovely to have some company, and I sometimes feel she's rather lonely. The series started with her being part of a lot of groups, and I feel that we don't see a lot of her life outside the family — but we've only got an hour per episode, and there are a lot of people to fit in! But yes, it was enormous fun working with Peter Davison again, because we had this wonderful tussle in [1980s BBC comedy-drama] A Very Peculiar Practice, where I was playing the very forcible Dr Rose Marie and he was the newbie Dr Stephen Daker, rather terrified by this woman! And then the tables were reversed, when Anne was slightly more nervous and he turned out to be an arch cad!

"As a family we spend a lot of time in West Penwith, which is really Penzance and St Ives west — but we're nowhere near that when we're filming! I'm up- and down-ing, but sometimes I have stays and I really enjoy it enormously — Plymouth is a very interesting place, with the Hoe and all of that. The countryside is glorious, and it's so curative to be able to go into the sea, freezing though it may be! The people there are very kind, and I think we could really grab a bit of that and take it back to London."

"The general public seem to be very worried about me living in the boat! They say, 'why don't you get your house back, Barbara? This is terrible!'. They talk about how much they enjoy it, and it's really very warm. That's really pleasant, because without the public no one would be earning in television, so it's important to let them know how important they are to us! They talk about other work too — A Family at War is being shown on Talking Pictures TV every Saturday night at the moment, so that's being talked about a lot, but people will always have their favourites: A Very Peculiar Practice, Cracker, Cranford, The Durrells, Miss Potter, Open All Hours is always there — some of them seem to be as perennial as the grass, which is lovely!"