Jan Ravens has been at the forefront of female impressionists for as long as I can remember, so it comes as a surprise that her current UK tour is her first on her own.

The star of Dead Ringers, Spitting Image, Bremner Bird and Fortune and Alistair McGowern's Big Impressions is in her dressing room in Haverhill, Suffolk, when I catch up with her.

"It's been really good fun and different every night," says the 51-year-old.

"You never quite now where you are going to end up, whether it be a state of the art arts centre or a converted office.

"Tomorrow night I'm going to my first thatched venue in a village hall in Derbyshire."

So why now to branch out on a solo tour?

"I've never had the bottle to get up and do it on my own before," she says quite honestly.

"I have done a lot of things in the last few years where you just have to challenge yourself and say yes I will do that and I think there is a stage you get to where you are conscious that those opportunities might not come up for that much longer and you really have to grab the nettle.

"Performing is second nature to me but it's the writing and the putting together of the show which I was most nervous about.

"When you are used to the audience going ha ha ha that's funny or that's not, the blank page or the blank screen are a very unforgiving audience."

Jan's show will not only include dozens of her famous impressions but also explanations on how she comes up with them and why people enjoy them so much.

"The difficulty of them varies completely," she says.

"Some of them just leap out at you and are instinctively there whereas some of them you have to really strip down into how they make their vowel sounds and their tone of voice.

"I found Judy Dench very difficult. I was intimidated by her because she was such a great actress but when she started doing the Bond films as M she revealed herself to me and became more accessible.

"I do really like doing Ellen MacArthur "She wears her heart on her sleeve and everything is so terrifying all the time and she's always bursting into tears."

Jan Ravens - A Funny Look at Impressions, Croydon Clocktower, July 2, 7.30pm, £12. Call 020 8253 1030 or visit croydonclocktower.org.uk.