CHERIE LUNGHI and Barbara Flynn have fallen quite nicely into the roles of Pat and Cabbage, perhaps because there is no one more qualified to play two 60-something women with a zest for life than two 60- something women with a zest for life.

Certainly for Lunghi, who makes no secret of the fact she is single and in no rush to find new love, this project seems all rather familiar. “I identify totally with Cabbage because I am that age. I absolutely understand where she is in the journey and how she feels,” she says.

For the past five weeks, we have watched newly divorced Cabbage and widowed Pat grab life by the horns after it takes them down a path different from the one they would have anticipated.

Lunghi says: “[They are] picking up where they left off before they got into marriage and children really – except they are in their 60s, they are not young anymore. They maybe now have even more of an appetite for life because in your 60s, you are very aware that you have not got all day. It does not last for ever, and it is not the dress rehearsal as they say – this is it.”

For both actresses, Pat and Cabbage is a break from the norm after years of being involved in drama, be it stage or screen work. “It is lovely to do some comedy, although I did do Starlings last year on Sky, which is lighter than the things I am accustomed to doing. But it is very nice to have a laugh and work with funny material,” Lunghi says.

It’s certainly a world away from those coffee adverts of the 1990s that thrust her into living rooms up and down the country.

“Oh that’s a long time ago now,”

she says. “It was a very nice time of my life, I enjoyed it, I traveled with it, it paid very well, it was very nice. Nine years. It is every actor’s dream to get a commercial like that because we are so self-employed and unemployed.

“I was on every night in people’s screen in their homes, so it did make my face familiar to people, and of course it was very good for women; it showed women off to be capable and smart and good at what they do, so I was happy to do it for that reason.”

Fast forward 15 years and it is the penultimate episode of Pat and Cabbage as the women enjoy a weekend away.

However, it is not as peaceful as they would have hoped, thanks to their families showing up unannounced. But once this project finishes, do not expect Lunghi to be winding down her career soon. “You do not give up this profession, it gives you up. So far, it is still smiling on me so I am not going to be ungrateful for that,” she says.