I want to lay in puddles and die

That’s one of the lines the incomparable Miss Veitch utters in this week’s Oran Mor play, Miss Veitch’s Roses.

It’s a poignant comment because we learn Kensington-based upper class lady Miss Veitch, played by Jenny Lee, has decided she too wants to lay in puddles.

At ninety, her brain is sharper than a rose thorn but her body is collapsing.

As a result, Miss Veitch has two carers. There’s Linda (Angela Darcy) a single mother of three kids who has huge self-esteem issues and Ewan, (Paul James Corrigan) a Scot living in London.

Linda looks after Miss Veitch during the day while Ewan looks after her at night. The carers never meet.

But Miss Veitch comes up with the idea of trying to bring the pair together.

The play however is not just about an old lady playing cupid; it's about uncovering the thoughts, and the past lives of all three.

And as Miss Veitch works out the back story to her carers, she comes to reflect on her own life.

“It’s a story about redemption,” says London-based Jenny who was born in Edinburgh.

“Ewan has a past too. We learn he’s been a drug addict yet he once trained to be a doctor.

“Something happened to him which wrecked his life. We come to discover both the carers are damaged people.”

Jenny adds; “We realise why Linda is so sad. Miss Veitch manages to build up both their self-belief, not overtly though, and she sometimes destroys their confidence a little.

“After all, she is upper class and views the work of the carer as something no one would really want to do.”

Miss Veitch has never had children. She has never married. "She says 'I always made sure I was the other woman'.”

Jenny adds, “The writer Jane Livingstone really knows a lot about how people over eighty think, and how they face the prospect of dying.

“Miss Veitch has faced dying. She knows her heart is weak. She knows it’s time to go. She wants to go. ‘Where’s your murderous jihadist when you need one?’ she asks.

“Jane manages to write in a way that resonates with me. For example, Miss Veitch talks about people becoming ‘Small, shuffling versions of their once magnificent selves.’ And that’s so true.”

Jenny Lee is far from small and shuffling. She has great energy, a delightful sense of humour (she spent a recent hour searching out the new Woody Allen film), and she certainly understands what is required of the role.

“I’m going to write a book ‘A hundred ways of dying on Stage Screen and Steam Radio’,” she laughs.

“Because the parts I get now I’m continually dying, having a heart attack or Alzheimer’s, or going off my rocker one way or another.

Jenny attended Glasgow’s RSAMD. “Tom Conti and Hannah Gordon were just ahead of me.”

She began working at the Byre and the Citizens’ Theatre, going on to work at the Lyceum in Edinburgh.

in the sixties she moved to London and appeared in the west end.

Was she a dolly bird?

“Well, I had a few parts playing the dolly bird,” she says, grinning.

“In real life I was more of a plain Jane but I could work at it because I loved to play the dumb blonde.”

She always wanted to act. “I don’t know why. I actually went to drama college at sixteen.”

She adds, grinning; “I must have been so incredibly talented.”

Jenny worked with many major talents, but has a fond memory of Scots comedy legend Rikki Fulton.

“I was doing a television programme with him, The House On The Hill (1981) which called for me to run down a flight of stairs in floods of tears.

“So I began crying and began to run when someone called out ‘Tea break’ and being very union-controlled in these days the lights went out.

“But as I stood there sobbing, still in character, Rikki asked the crew if they would keep going, just so I wouldn’t have to get myself in that state again. I thought ‘There’s a man who cares’.”

Jenny, who has played great roles such as Miss Jean Brodie and appeared at the Royal Court has enjoyed acting life.

She ran a theatre company for twenty five years, the Attic, next door to Wimbledon Theatre.

“I never became a household name, though,” she says, smiling.

“But there’s still time.”

• Miss Veitch’s Roses, Oran Mor, until Saturday.