Janie Dee, 46, won the Olivier, the London Evening Standard and the Critics’ Circle Theatre best actress awards in 2000 for her performance in Alan Ayckbourn’s Comic Potential, an achievement only ever matched by Dame Judi Dench. She is currently appearing in Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. She lives in the capital with her husband, the actor Rupert Wickham, and their two children

One of my favourite places in the whole world is Scarborough. It doesn’t have a very glamorous image, I know, but I love everything about it and I go there year after year.

I discovered it almost a decade ago, when I was appearing there in an Alan Ayckbourn play, Comic Potential. The highlight is the spa, which I could happily sit in all day, every day. There is no roof, so, on sunny days, I can lie there with my cup of tea, listening to the orchestra, which at nearly 100 years old is one of the longest running in England. These musicians have left big orchestras in London because they believe Scarborough is worth leaving all that behind for, and I can totally understand where they’re coming from.

Scarborough has everything you could wish for: the culture and history of the old castle and museums, the stunning scenery of the dramatic, ragged coastline and clifftop paths, and the kids love it. They spent the summer learning to surf, riding donkeys up and down the beach and bouncing on the trampolines. It’s good old-fashioned fun, but it’s becoming ever so slightly chic, as young families realise that that’s what makes children happy . . . and if they’re happy, we’re happy.

When I’d finished the play in Scarborough, I was absolutely shattered and desperately needed a complete break. So when my friend insisted I visit him at his villa in Sardinia, I filled a plastic bag with clothes and jumped on a plane.

I remember him driving me straight to the beach from the airport, and I just stood there, in awe, looking at the bluest sea I’d ever seen. I was so emotional and overcome that I ran down the beach, stripping off as I went, and jumped into the crystal-clear water naked. I was just completely taken over by the moment and swam and swam, all the time crying because I was so happy.

Since then, I’ve loved Italy. A recent find was Tavolara, a tiny island kingdom just off the coast of Olbia in Sardinia. The king owns the boat and the restaurant, which are pretty much the only things there, apart from four tiny chalets. We stayed in one for a week and it was the most “real” holiday I’ve ever had. There is no electricity past six o’clock, so you use candles, and there are no phones. The rest-aurant is in the sea, on stilts, and we’d sit there as the sun went down, eating whatever fish they’d caught that morning. It was what a holiday should be about — back to basics and being with yourself.

I do like to be pampered, though, and you don’t get better looked after than when you’re in Japan.

I went to Hakone and stayed in a ryokan, a traditional paper-and-wood inn, with a bunch of girls from the New York City Opera. It was way up in the mountains, one of the calmest places I’ve ever been. There are hundreds of hot-spring pools you can just drop into. The staff taught us a cleansing ritual before wrapping us up in kimonos. We all sat there meditating, as a way of remembering the moment.

If you go somewhere with such a culture change, you have to embrace the experience, otherwise there’s little point. I probably could have passed on the Japanese delicacies, though — I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess at what I ate, but it was all very raw and had a certain tang of bodily fluid to it.

My parents live in Avignon and I try to get out there at least three times a year. Dad was a motor- cyclist who competed in rallies all over Europe, and Provence was his stomping ground. When we were on holiday, dad was a typical dad: everybody’s hero — unless you were his daughter, and he had four of them. I’ll never forget driving through the Pyrenees with us kids squeezed into the back seat and mum saying: “John, we really do need to stop. We’ve been going for hours and the girls need a drink.” He reluctantly pulled over at the next petrol station and I had vivid images of quenching my unbearable thirst with a cold drink. But do you know what he came back with? A packet of digestive biscuits. To this day, I can’t look at a digestive without my throat drying up.

Janie Dee was talking to Sandie Jones

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