Quick to please

Diana Quick has vivid memories of the stories her father told about being at school in India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. The son of a colonial settler, he was at one of the prestigious boarding schools there, with a large shimmering lake for a view, and the mountains in the distance.

'One morning he was told he couldn't go to breakfast, and had to stay upstairs in his dormitory. When he asked why, he found out that a large brown bear was sleeping on the veranda. His stories always caught my imagination - they were very romantic. I thought it was so wonderful - can you imagine sleeping above bears?'

Quick's family history has attuned her to Europe's colonial past, which she has drawn on for her highly demanding stage role as the novelist Jean Rhys. Rhys's extraordinary alienated imagination led her to write the famous prequel to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, which focused not on Jane, but on the first Mrs Rochester (who appears in Jane Eyre as a mad woman, locked in the attic by her husband) taking her back to the mixed legacy of her Caribbean roots.

Published in 1966, it attracted a flurry of admiring critical attention, which came almost too late for the woman who was assumed dead by several literary friends - in fact she died in 1979, aged 89 - and was known locally as a turbulent drunk, who was sent to prison several times, once for biting a neighbour.

More than one journalist has commented on the irony that after years of being viewed as a worldly sex symbol, Quick is reigniting her career on stage by playing a mad dishevelled alcoholic. The excitement surrounding her appearance in the West End seems long overdue - despite working consistently since she shot to fame as Julia in Brideshead Revisited, she has been outshone by such contemporaries as Diana Rigg, Julie Walters, and Helen Mirren.

This is partially attributable to an accident shortly after Bridesheadwhen, at a point when she could have been building on her success, she inexplicably blacked out following a Ry Cooder concert and hit the pavement, losing several teeth. The physical legacy of the accident persists, in that she still has to undergo complicated dental work. Yet her career seems ripe for renewed take-off - when After Mrs Rochesterwas touring, the Financial Times asked: 'Has Diana Quick ever been better?'

The actress acknowledges that she was 'very scared' of portraying Rhys, confessing that 'part of the initial week's rehearsal was spent sitting there and thinking "I will never be able to do this".' But she has been fascinated by Rhys since the Sixties as an example of 'women who lived in this shadowy demi-mondaine world and defined themselves through men, before falling foul of them.

As a result they would find a way of surviving by reasserting their sexuality in a way that was often quite radical.' She continues: 'There was an episode, while Jean Rhys was living in Devon, when her neighbour accused her of being a witch. I asked Francis [Wyndham, the writer who encouraged and edited much of Rhys's writing] "Why did people think she was a witch?" and he replied, "Because she was one. A white witch." So I said "What did she do?" And he said: "She could seduce any man she wanted." '

Quick - a former lover of Albert Finney, and friend of Mick Jagger - clearly identifies with Rhys's lust for life and bohemian adventure, but unlike Rhys, has managed to sustain a 22-year relationship. Her partner Bill Nighy - who has been described as one of Britain's more esoteric sex symbols - always advises her on her stage appearances, leading her to declare 'I think he should direct at some point.

For much of the past 20 years he has been a wonderful theatre actor, and he gives me the best notes.' She is well aware that she lives in a world where longlasting relationships, especially in show-business, can be viewed cynically and asserts: 'Both Bill and I feel that love is an action --you can choose either to do something lovingly or not. You make each day work as it comes, there's no real secret to it.'