How Jennifer Saunders laughed her way through chemotherapy Loosely, says Saunders, the musical is about an adopted girl with an overprotective mother. "She doesn't really want to find her biological mother but she's on a TV talent show that thinks it would be a really good idea," she explains. You see it on X Factor. They have chosen the one with the story. Did she conceive this idea when her own daughters were leaving home? No, but I have had that empty-nest syndrome. When the girls left it was a slow grieving process. You go, oh look, we're just on our own again. It's my husband and me. Good Morning. "Yes, good morning to you."" She says this, pulling her awkward face. She and husband Ade Edmondson have been married for 27 years. In 2001 they moved to a 400-year-old Devon farmhouse to bring up their children, and they now live mostly in London. "Gradually you adjust," she says. You miss them. You miss their friends, too. You miss the general hubbub of people always being there. I didn't think about empty nests when I was writing this. It was more having to let someone go out and make their own mistakes. You can't learn from other people's mistakes. Was it based on the relationship she had with her own mother, a biology teacher? No, that relationship was much more old-fashioned. I mean, you would call your mother's friends Mrs. Nowadays you would call everyone by their Christian name. It was quite formal, and I am emotional with my kids. They see the s--- as well as the good. I was brought up really well. I had boundaries where if you crossed the line, you know you are in trouble. I think my kids sort of get that. Despite her beginnings as a taboo-busting alternative comedy pioneer, Saunders says she's only ever been a rebel "in my head. I cannot do confrontation. You know that fight or flight thing? I'm flight. I just don't want the argument. Eggs arrive. At first we don't know if they are hard-boiled or soft-boiled. Saunders takes it and attempts to peel it, pauses, "If it cracks now we're in s---." It's a cold, hard-boiled egg. She says that after her father died of cancer eight years ago, the dynamic changed in the relationship with her mother. We became much closer. She is a coper. She was born to cope. She is strong and funny. She had a stroke and I was there. She forgets words and cries with laughter when the wrong ones come out. We literally laughed our way through the stroke. By the time the paramedics arrived she was crying real tears of laughter, probably to do with relief. But she said, "Will you go up to the donkey upstairs and bring down my..." The donkey? She meant drawers. She just laughed and laughed. It is very rare for Saunders to look right at you. Most of the time she mumbles into her scarf or looks away, allowing me to get a good look at her skin. It's dewy and smooth, with hardly any wrinkles. The idea for Viva came up in 2009. They narrowed it down to which songs they wanted to use and she started to write the story. She began writing proper the following January. "I was three months into chemotherapy," she says matter-of-factly. Saunders was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2009, yet she has never overplayed her illness. She has never used the word "battle," and one feels she would wince if it was ever used for her. She appears to have shrugged it off; like her mother, she's a coper. How was it possible to write when having chemo? Luckily Judy was very sympathetic. I remember struggling to organise my thoughts. When you are doing chemo you have a load of time. I just thought "I am not not going to do this job and by the time I'm finished it everything will be fine." Judy was brilliant, she would come round the house with a bottle of vodka and the tunes and we would sit and drink. Vodka and chemo? Oh yes. You can drink when you are doing chemo. You've got so much s--- in your body you may as well be drunk. We sat and listened to the songs endlessly and it was so helpful. Most people might lie down and vomit. Singing Spice Girls songs and writing a musical does sound a rather extraordinary way to get through it. No, not really. Some people hold down full-time jobs. I didn't have a vomit problem. Didn't feel vomity at all. I had brilliant anti-sickness medication and it worked. For some people it works well and some people it doesn't. I was very lucky. There are some days when you feel a bit grim and other days, you know, towards the end of a session, OK, and you know it's not killing you. Just makes you feel rotten. But what is it really like? You feel chemical, that's what you feel. You feel you are part of a big chemical thing but you tell yourself it's a cure not a disease and you've got to get rid of the disease. The chemo is the belt and braces. It feels s--- when it's working. You think, yes I feel absolutely s---, it's doing its job and you just get on with it. Did she have any paranoia, or moments of depression? Sometimes you feel horrible. Sometimes you feel emotional. And then sometimes when you see your skin goes to s--- you have moments where you think "I hate this." But there's always a point where you think you might as well get over it and life gets back vaguely to normal. Are things normal now? Has she finished the meds? No, you don't finish. I'm still on hormone therapy and I'll be on that for the rest of my life. It takes all your hormones away. It takes all your oestrogen away because what I can't have is oestrogen because my cancer is oestrogen sensitive. You go on to tamoxifen or some other oestrogen therapy which takes the hormones out so you are basically in menopause. You are from the moment you start chemo because it kills everything. It was this - being "plunged" into menopause - that made Saunders depressed. "That whole side of you, what it is to be a woman, which is hormones, it just goes," she says. You have to get through it but it takes a while. It took me a year on tamoxifen to get used to it, to not be grieving for your oestrogen. It's the thing they least warn you about. They go, "right, now we go on tamoxifen and everything will be fine." You have to do it. I hated the tamoxifen when I first got on it. I don't hate it now because I'm adjusted to it. I thought, "there has to be something else." I went to the doctor and asked him: "is there another drug?" He's the most brilliant doctor and he explained to me: "if you were my wife, I would insist you take this." What it needs is someone to really explain how important it is to you and the side effects. They're quite psychological but also physical. And I honestly imagined that I would very quickly turn into a very small leather handbag. She makes the creaking sound of a small leather thing. Though she seems in good spirits today, Saunders says she still takes antidepressants. I see it as you need to boost yourself up because suddenly you have no oestrogen and your serotonin goes down, everything depletes and you start thinking - [she makes a moaning sound] - so take a bit of antidepressant and it's fine again. It's a juggling act, isn't it, what to put in and what not to, but I find I am happy now. It's been two years since she finished her treatment, normally the peak of possible recurrence. But the good news is, she recently returned to hospital for a "big scan" and was declared free of cancer. The weird thing is I'd never been to a hospital in my life until the cancer thing, but I kind of like going into clinics now. Oh, I'm going into this one and that one. Do take some blood. I find it kind of reassuring. I did grieve a bit when I wasn't having the chemo anymore. I was used to sitting in the little chair and then the nurse would come and do it. It was like that was your job for that long and it was reassuring. So the thought of one of these scans made me think, "Oh, that would be quite nice, wouldn't it." You get injections, go a bit radioactive, then you get put in the big banging machine for a bit. I actually quite enjoyed it. I tell her that is kind of weird and she must have been deprived of attention as a child. She laughs, "Yes. But I do love that stuff now. Bang, bang, bang, oh it's my turn. Actually, Saunders is the opposite of attention seeking. She kept her cancer quiet until she had finished her chemo. She had been photographed a couple of times but no one guessed she was wearing a wig. I had very good wigs. Two of them. One was a real hair wig which was a lot of trouble. I was lucky in that most of the chemo happened during the winter so you could just wear hats. I didn't mind that aspect of it. What is weird is all of your hair falls out. Everything. Your eyebrows. Your pubic hair. Your leg hair, arm hair, your nose hair. The weirdest thing is your nose hair because you are constantly snivelling and you get nose bleeds a lot. You are a bald person with a nose bleed. I didn't mind that, and it's a funny thing. Of all the things to care about my hair was the least thing I cared about. At least I didn't have to have a wax for the best part of a year. Hair grows back and it comes back everywhere. I was looking at my face and thinking it's so hairy. Suddenly everywhere was hairy. We order toast instead of the giant pastries, but when the waiter arrives we are presented with just bread. The café has messed up everything we've ordered. "This is the most hilarious breakfast I've ever had," she laughs. Soon she must go to the theatre for a run-through. After this, what else does she have coming up? I'm thinking about a film of Ab Fab on the basis that The Inbetweeners was a successful film. I don't know about doing more telly. I'm thinking of setting it in the south of France. I always imagine the Riviera life, that search for the nostalgic idea of glamour. It's hard for me to think beyond press night at the moment. To relax, she rides horses. But not as much as she used to. "Ade said, "You've had a good run, but if you fall off ..." And he was like: "Just stop." At the moment I've just started with a power plate. It's a thing that jiggles - you stand on it and do certain positions. I've also tried to start jogging. But I walk my dog a lot. Her dog is a whippet called Olive, and her owner believes she's "the most beautiful dog in the world. Everyone knows Olive. The other day I was at the station in Devon and I had Olive and there was a woman who looked at Olive and recognised her. "Oh, it must be Jennifer Saunders because this is Olive." " She puts on a proud dog mother face, which is very similar to her proud grandmother face. Her skin, for what it's worth, does not look remotely grandmother like. "Sometimes I do think a bit of Botox might be good but I haven't done anything," she says when I mention her line-free features. I think I should really give up drinking for a bit then I'd lose weight, but then I think I can't be bothered. It's just so nice to have a drink. "Viva Forever!" is at the Piccadilly Theatre, London W1, from November 27. vivaforeverthemusical.com