As television comedy icons go, Gladys Pugh is right up there with Basil Fawlty, Nora Batty and Del Boy.

Now a grandmother, Ruth Madoc started acting at the age of 15, but she’ll always have a place in her heart for Gladys, Hi-de-Hi’s man-hungry Yellow Coat whose wake-up call “Morning campers” was a well-worn catchphrase more than two decades ago.

Now she’s joining another much-loved sitcom, Last Of The Summer Wine, in the stage version coming to Bradford next week.

Ruth plays Meg, who joins ageing delinquents Foggy, Compo and Clegg in the hunt for a mysterious nocturnal streaker known as the ‘moonbather’.

“It’s all good clean fun; it’s basically boys getting up to mischief,” smiles Ruth.

“It’s a gentle comedy, drawing on earlier episodes of the sitcom. It’s treated on a farcical level, so there’s lots of coming and going.”

Audiences can expect the usual madcap shenanigans, the mandatory wheelbarrow catastrophe and whether it’s really possible to fit three elderly men in an understairs cupboard.

The show also stars Tony Adams, of Crossroads fame, and former Brookside actor Steven Pinder.

“It’s inoffensive; I think that’s why it’s been popular for so many years,” says Ruth.

“The older generation can identify with it, but we get children coming along too. There are no expletives – it’s something the whole family can watch.”

Ruth is hoping Roy Clarke, creator of the much-loved comedy, will be in the Bradford audience.

“I think he’s coming along. It’ll be interesting to see what he thinks,” she says. “It was tried out on amateur societies first, which is often the case with TV comedies translating to the stage. They’re doing it with Hi-de-Hi next year. And no, I won’t be in it this time – I’m far too old!”

Hi-de-Hi, the BBC sitcom about life in 1950s holiday camp Maplins, remains a comedy classic.

“When it started, it already had a good track record because of the writers, David Croft and Jimmy Perry, who had created shows like Dad’s Army,” says Ruth.

“I was nearly 40 when I got the role. It was lovely to play such a well-loved character. I’m just a jobbing actress. I’ve been in the business since I was 15 and I’ve done loads of roles before and since Hi-de-Hi, but people always remember me as Gladys.

“This Sunday we’re all getting together for a big 30th anniversary Hi-de-Hi reunion. I can’t wait.”

Ruth, 66, returns to our TV screens this winter, in a new comedy called Big Top.

“It’s set in a circus and has a great cast – Amanda Holden, Sophie Thompson, Tony Robinson and John Thomson,” says Ruth. “It has all the movement and colour that Hi-de-Hi had; it’s a good family comedy, the kind of thing you can sit and watch together. There isn’t much of that on anymore, in the way of comedy. There are so many channels now – television has become fragmented.

“We filmed Big Top in front of a studio audience; we had bales of hay, caravans, ferrets running about.

“When you’re performing for an audience, you need good voice projection and control. That was drummed into my generation at drama school and in rep. I was talking to Tony Robinson about it; he’s a bit younger than me, but he started as a child actor and remembers the days when you had to have good voice projection and know how to stand on stage and command an audience.

“We’re all of an age in Last Of The Summer Wine but we can all project our voices because we’ve had the right training and background.”

She adds: “These days the spoken word is being neglected. Young performers don’t have the experience of rep like we did. It’s all about the fast buck, becoming famous as quickly as possible.

“I didn’t come into this business with stars in my eyes. We used to look at longevity.”

After graduating from RADA, Ruth went into rep and did summer seasons with artists such as Leslie Crowther, Max Wall and Bruce Forsyth.

Her career has spanned theatre, television, film and radio, and over the last couple of decades she has taken on character roles in such shows as Annie, playing mean-spirited drunk Miss Hannigan; Gypsy, as Mama Rose; and Pickwick, playing Mrs Bardell opposite former Goon Harry Secombe.

In recent years, Ruth has been introduced to a new audience, thanks to her role as the mother of Daffyd, the only gay in the village.

The role, in TV comedy Little Britain, was written for her by the show’s creators and stars, Matt Lucas and David Walliams – but she wouldn’t do it without her children’s blessing.

“I wasn’t keen at first because of all the swearing. I had to ask what some of the words meant,” she says. “But my son said ‘oh, go on mum, go for it’.

“I had great fun. I have a lot to thank Matt and David for. Being in Little Britain brought me to the attention of the Big Top producers.

“If you’re not on telly, people think you’re dead!”

Welcome back to the land of the living, Ruth.

Last Of The Summer Wine runs at St George’s Hall from Tuesday to Saturday. For tickets, ring (01274) 432000.