ON the morning of March 27, check if the sun has come up in the sky, if the rivers still flow and if the birds are still singing in the trees?

Why the consultation with the earth around? Well, Dorothy Paul will have played her last ever show. And without the legend that is Ms Paul being around the question asked is 'Will the world ever be the same again?'

"That's nice of you to say that, darlin'," says the lady from Dennistoun, relaxing in her art studio in her west end apartment.

"It will be strange for me to give it up. I've been performing for sixty years now, but I think it's time to call it a day."

Why? The lady looks at least ten years younger than the date on her birth certificate ( 1937 ) would suggest.

"I'm tired," she says. "I've been working on this final show for four months - I've been persuaded to do it - and it's a lot of work for two nights at the Comedy Festival.

"Plus, I have a hard time remembering the lines. It happens to most people of my age. It's just a fact of life.

"But the other reason is I want to stop. I want to spend time with my grandchildren.

"It's not hard for me to admit I'm a better grandparent than I was a mother, but I'm doing my best."

Dorothy Paul has always given her best on stage. "It's been hard at times to go out there," she says. "Playing the clubs in the sixties and seventies was often horrendous. At times, you were treated like you were less than dirt.

"And as for trying to break into comedy? Well, it was a man's world. And I've actually worked with comedians who told me to stop being funny.

"What they didn't want was a woman getting the laughs."

She adds, with a wry smile; "But it's not just men who held women back. I once worked in Ireland for a female panto producer who cast me as the Principal Girl.

"Then the next year she told me I was too old to play the part. I was to play the Old Fairy she decreed. I was thirty two at the time."

Dorothy Pollock as she was however has defied expectation. A stunning looking teenager, she emerged from the east end as a soprano and began working on the touring circuit.

But she wasn't part of the thick skinned showbiz set. In early shows, the doctor prescribed green Chartreuse to help her nerves. Dorothy didn't know she was glugging alcohol.

The lady developed a serious drink problem in later life, but that never stopped her working herself into a state.

Nor did it stop her trying to break into the man's world of comedy.

"I felt I could be funny and I persisted," she recalls. "And I knew that not all male comedians were funny. In fact, some were as funny as a sore a***.

"But I suppose I've been helped by the fact I've always seen the absurdity in life. And my mother was funny."

Dorothy harnessed the Glaswegian aggressive humour and gave it a female voice.

But when variety shows died, and the One O'Clock television show ran out of time, the lady - now on her own with two young daughters - worked a range of jobs, from seamstress to continuity announcer, from saleswoman to acting teacher.

"I even wrote to Dr Who who replied with a very funny line; ''We're not looking for any Glasgow aliens at the moment'."

"But at the time I was so desperate I was eating the grapes off the wallpaper."

She adds, of the hardest times. "Once when I didn't get the part in the King and I went home and began kicking the fridge. I thought I'd done so well in audition. Then I got a phone call to come for an audition for the Steamie."

The acting break revealed Dorothy to the world. Dorothy was selected for the role of Magrit by director Alex Norton, and she tore halls apart with laughter.

"My comedy is all about self-effacement," she says. "You've got to be able to laugh at yourself. And I think I've been able to do that."

Even when she was a 'blonde dolly bird. "I'd wear the red nose and make up and go into the 'Haw, Maw', voice. It's always funny.

"And I'd learned from the greats such as Gracie Clark, who played the berated housewife. She slips into Clark routine. 'You're asking me for a pudding? That chair and me are strangers and you're going to play darts.'

Does she have regrets in the business? Some. She fell out with writing pal John Bett, which saddens her.

"But I have to say the audiences have been wonderful and I'm so grateful for them coming to see me."

Her favourite memories? "All the lovely people I've worked with," she says. "It's been the nice people that have kept me going in life, from the girls in the Kraft Cheese factory to Wildcat Theatre Company.

"And after I did my first one-woman show at the Tron Theatre, Billy Connolly came to see me backstage.

"I felt a bit awkward, and said 'Look, Billy, despite what some people say, I'm not trying to be a female version of you.'

"And he gave me this giant hug, and said 'No, hen, you've got your own talent."

At this point, Dorothy's eyes well up.

"I'm going to miss the stage," she says. ""It will be hard to walk away. It's all I've known for sixty years. There will be tears and snot on the night."

She adds; "Give me a hug, darlin'. I need a hug."

And she gets her hug. And she smiles. But there's still no guarantee the birds will be singing on March 27.

*Classic Dorothy, the King's Theatre, March 26 at 2.30 and 7.30pm.