After Dinner Speakers: Lesley Joseph, Derren Brown, Aretha Franklin

Best known as man-eating neighbour Dorien in TV's hugely successful Birds Of A Feather, she has had a huge string of theatre and musical successes. Lesley trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before carving a career for herself on the stage. On the West End stage she has appeared in wonderful Town, Exclusive Yarns and Godspell. She gained critical acclaim in her one woman show Singular Women. Lesley is currently playing meddling teacher Rachel Gulgrin in ITV's late-evening soap Night and Day, filmed in Greenwich and focusing on the lives of six families living in and around fictional Thornton Street in East London. She lives in Clapham and has two children.