Tell us a little about your hair history… I had very thick, long dark hair, usually kept in a plait, all through my childhood. When I went to boarding school, pressure was put on my mother to have my hair cut. Eventually it was cut to shoulder length but we kept letting it grow. White hair began appearing in my dark hair when I was in my early 20s, if not before. When I was around 30 I felt like making a big change to my looks, something more punk and pared back, and I was playing a couple of male roles so I had my hair cut extremely short. It felt very liberating at the time and people often mistook me for a guy. After that I played around with lots of styles and colouring, letting it grow a bit, cutting it again, mainly settling on a very short peroxide white, triggered by playing Ariel in The Tempest. It was always difficult to get the perfect short cut and it meant having several haircuts a year to get the androgynous style I wanted. Then it was dyed dark for another role and eventually I began to let my hair grow long again. I got tired of colouring it dark – and felt it was unhealthy – so I began turning blonde again about 13 years ago and, as my real hair was an almost perfect white by then, I stopped colouring it completely. And I kept letting it grow. I hate getting it cut now. I get it trimmed maybe once a year when I feel it has gone too wispy at the ends but even a trim can be mildly traumatic unless it is done brilliantly by someone who really understands an individual person’s hair.