Maxine Peake's My London

The Silk star boozes with barmen, goes wild for vinyl and wants to live in a cemetery

Home is
Salford, near Manchester. I've lived there for three years with my boyfriend Pawlo.

Where do you stay in London?
At Michelle Butterly's house on Great Portland Street. We met eight years ago when we were both doing plays at the Royal Court.

What advice would you give a tourist coming to London 2012?
Save up. It's expensive.

What's the best meal you've had in London?
I'm not a foodie so I get my friend, the actor Benedict Wong, to take me out. Last time we went to Jade Garden in Chinatown. He ordered everything and we just pigged out on sweet dumplings.

What's your earliest London memory?
I was 20 and auditioning for RADA. Walking down Gower Street I was totally overawed. It's such a little doorway, but that name over the top made me so excited.

What's the most romantic thing someone's done for you?
I was coming out of a recall for Three Sisters thinking, 'I'm a terrible actress.' I was just out of drama school and I was a big 15-stone girl so there was no way I was going to get the part. There was a gentleman in his sixties waiting across the road. He came over and handed me a folded-up piece of paper with a poem written on it. It said something like, 'You are wonderful, be who you are, the sun shines on you.' I probably cried, and I've kept it with me ever since.

Do you ever have a recurring dream?
During filming I have an anxiety dream in which I wake up in the middle of the night and the entire crew has crawled in and started filming me. Pawlo says I shout out: 'I'm not ready!'

What was the last play you saw in London?
The School for Scandal at the Barbican. It's quite relevant today in terms of super-injunctions. Our lust for gossip doesn't seem to go away.

Which shops do you rely on?
I love Margaret Howell. I've got some great wide-leg 1930s-style trousers from there. YMC on Poland Street and APC are also great for clothes. Tatty Devine is good for little brooches. Mimi on Cheshire Street does really nice handbags that are all a bit different so you don't have the same as everyone else.

What was the last album you bought?
Suicide A Way of Life. It's brilliant. I discovered the band on a Jarvis Cocker compilation.

What's your biggest extravagance?
CDs and vinyl. It's a good job I live in a house not a flat or the floor might have given way with all the boxes.

How would you like the opening line of your obituary to read?
'She died laughing so hard she wet herself.'

If you could live in any building in London which would it be?
The cemetery in Whitechapel. I think it's really beautiful and I love the vibe around there.

What would you do if you were Mayor of London for the day?
Abolish all payment on transport.

What are you up to at the moment?
I'm rehearsing Loyalty by Sarah Helm at Hampstead Theatre. I'm in the 'oh-my-goodness-have-I-really-got-to-go-on-stage' period.