THE A449 to Malvern will probably be strewn with rose petals next week and no doubt the red carpet is ready and waiting, along with half a dozen hunky flunkies and a celebrity chef or two, because Joan Collins is in town.

The lady is, I suppose, what passes for theatrical royalty, which isn't bad considering her best remembered role was in an American TV soap that ended 15 years ago and I don't recall her ever coming within a country mile of an Oscar.

But, with La Collins, image appears to have had little trouble overcoming substance every time.

Nowadays, the most frequent topic of any conversation about her is, "How does she manage to look so good at her age?" After all she's within fingertip distance of 70, yet I've no doubt at all that after 10 minutes in her company any spotty youth would emerge with sweaty palms and a sudden longing for older women.

Sadly I didn't have the chance to meet her when they did the Press call for the tour of Full Circle, the Alan Melville play in which she stars at Malvern Festival Theatre next week.

To make up for that, a syndicated interview was circulated, which journalists who couldn't make it, were invited to use all or part of. This was never going to compensate for a personal encounter, but there you go.

It starts with Joan explaining in her own words what Full Circle, adapted by Melville from the French original, is all about.

"It's a comedy about a woman," she says. "A novelist and the mother of three children, who've always thought that the man whose picture hangs above the mantlepiece is their father. Now she has to explain to them that not only is he not their father, but they each have a different father and she was married to none of them."

For a lady whose personal relationships read like an A-Z of showbiz - she's alleged to have turned down overtures from Frank Sinatra, Robert Kennedy and Dean Martin, been engaged to Warren Beatty and enjoyed affairs with Dennis Hopper, Ryan O'Neal and Arthur Lowe(!) - this was obviously going to be a doddle.

Apparently she loves the play because it is "stylish, witty and entertaining", which would probably suit Joan as an epitaph for her own life.

The lead character is likened in some aspects to Alexis Colby, the role in the much shoulder-padded Dynasty, which revamped, an appropriate word, her career in the 1980s after a couple of decades in the doldrums.

In fact, it has only been in the last 20 years Joan has really achieved the "superstar" label her image has warranted, ever since her eyes smouldered out of the celluloid in Land of the Pharaohs as long ago as 1955.

Almost half a century of being the object of men's desire is no mean feat and in the interview Joan reveals her secret of "looking so great".

Apparently it's a lot to do with your parents.

"They gave me good genes," she says, "and I think I've made the most of them. I try to stay in shape and I'm good about eating the right things. I work out two or three times a week when I'm at home and more than anything I try to take care of my skin."

So there we have it, the Joan Collins' guide to eternal life and a breeze through a career that began as a teenage starlet in 1951 with a walk-on part in Lady Godiva Rides Again.

A lot of men have flowed under the bridge since then, so let's touch our cap to a survivor and prepare to go weak in the presence of beauty.

Full Circle plays Malvern Festival Theatre from Monday, June 21, to Saturday, June 26. Tickets £16-£20. Box office 01684 892277.