She’s the woman with flair and ability who flags down dustcarts when she can’t find a taxi. The lady who founded the Open Space Theatre, ran the Roundhouse and reckons she looks as old as God. And the guile-filled former thesp and erstwhile parachutist who is bringing the Ninagawa-directed play Tango at the End of Winter to London.

Enter top producer Miss Thelma Holt, the only female theatre producer in the West End at the moment.

We’re sitting in Ivor Novello’s bedroom, next door to Thelma’s office – wherein sits her assistant, Sweet Pea. She has her feet upon the bed. She’s wearing what she calls a pale brick sack – a Thirties dress that she didn’t pay for. ‘I prefer to barter. I swapped it for my two black lace ones with a friend who used to be a costume lady in the theatre,’ she says, nicely spoken. It’s the voice of a former actress – confident and convincing sounding.

She wears an artfully arranged flowery and glittery scarf – ‘it’s to cover hair that is filthy and scrunched up’ – perfect make-up and feet that are au naturel. Urban gipsy gear. What do her clothes reveal about her? ‘That I’m a slut’ – she giggles and slits her eyes. ‘But seriously, that I like Thirties stuff.’ In the Sixties she wore men’s suits; in the Seventies she was into junk clothes.

The initiated can tell a lot about her from her bohemian garnet earrings. They’re her birthstone. ‘I’m a goat – which means I’m tenacious and hardworking. They’re also ambitious and bad tempered – which I’m not.’ She moves into position number four – legs curled under her – in as many minutes.

She’s 5ft 4in with a pixie face, feline eyes and thin lips. ‘I’m small and dumpy,’ she says. ‘And I have very nice hands and feet.’ She says – 59 at Christmas – that she’s got used to her looks over a long time. ‘I like my hair, it’s very thick. And I’ve got good bones, don’t you think?’ She played a naked Lady Macbeth in the Sixties. ‘I was two stone lighter – I wouldn’t want to play one now. Yes, I enjoyed it. I didn’t mind being naked on stage. It wasn’t the first time – I was always naked. Everyone was naked in the Sixties.’ She simply imagined she was 12, felt vulnerable, and had no feelings of discomfort.

She moves her body again, leaning back deep and relaxed. ‘I move a lot. I’m only ever still in theatres. Normally it’s an expression of my anxiety that there’s something else I should be doing. You might find in 10 minutes that I lie down!’

She comes over as educated, strong, very clear, decisive and with incredible poise. She’s also rather daunting, very hard and tough, not at all the engaging eccentric I’d imagined. She seems an angry person, certainly today. And she’s very much the one in control – probably very manipulative and with eyes that flash challenges.

How does she see her character? ‘I’d like to be more tolerant – I don’t suffer fools gladly. I’m not resentful and have never experienced envy in my life . . . so I like helping people. I have a deep deep fear of mediocrity. ‘I feel terribly misunderstood – what I am and what I appear to be are very different.’ She reckons she’s not easily read. ‘I think people think I’m a lot tougher than I am. They misjudge my seeming confidence. But the truth of my real personality not being like the one I project is that I have an ulcer.’

And what of the slightly dotty, eccentric image? She says that hitching a dustcart late at night – when there was no other available transport – was nothing but practical. ‘But I suppose I do have my little eccentricities – like I have no doors in the flat, just curtains. The cat prefers it that way.’

And is she like her cat? ‘Ooh yes, I’m very cat-like. I look a bit like a cat. I walk alone the way they do. I don’t know if I’ve become like my cat – or my cat like me . . . but we’re both affectionate and tactile.’ They differ on the excitability stakes. ‘She’s excitable – but I never am in a crisis. I tend to think that where I’m not, chaos is.’

Toughness and confidence show in her face. ‘Nooo . . .’ (little girlie voice) ‘I think I look rather anxious and like a worried mouse – but you’re proving what other people also say to me. My assistants sometimes say, ‘It’s time to bring on the Big Gun’. For me to turn rough with someone. It amuses them ‘cos they think I’ll carve someone up – but it always amazes me that I can do that. I don’t think I do at all. I mean I never shout and I don’t think I’ve got a particularly nasty tongue.’

And is she as strong as she appears? ‘Yes, I am strong. You can rely on me – I won’t let you down.’ She says one shouldn’t be responsible for other people’s well-being if one’s not strong. ‘The weak may inherit the earth, but they won’t run the theatre.’ And mischievous? ‘I suppose so’ (little girlie voice again). And cunning? ‘Yes,’ she says, definitely. And what does she do with her anger? ‘I’m like the Jewish grandad. When people make me really angry, I just make them disappear from my memory.’ And what of her weaknesses? ‘My greatest failing is to expect from other people the same depth of commitment as I give. If I don’t get it, I get hurt – and I’m not nice then. I’m bitchy. But I never look for revenge. I expect God to do it for me – and he usually does.’

She wanted to be a priest as a child, for the frocks and ritual rather than because she was a good Catholic. But she still lights a candle for every new play. ‘I pray every night and morning.’ She also believes in the power of positive thought. ‘I think negative thought is harmful, dangerous.’

She has been thrice married. She loves getting wed, but finds it harder staying thus. After one wedding, she ended up in the bath with her gay brother-in-law. ‘Oh, he was only a brother-in-law – and he was only a baby,’ she says, in mock affronted fashion (he was 26). She has also said she wed her last husband ‘for his legs’. The marriage lasted six weeks. What’s her problem with staying married? ‘Because I keep going away. I have tunnel vision. When I’m working, nothing else matters. And I’m not at all domesticated.’

She also finds it hard when the time comes for the relationship to change. ‘The man has always been the more mature one, even though my last husband was a lot younger than I. They expect the love affair to grow into a mature relationship – and I expect it to go on being in a play-pen. And when it ceases to be playful, I go off.’

How important is sex to her? ‘Well, have you ever met an unsexy goat? They’re terribly sexy, goats – awful, oversexed. I like sex. My generation was enormously promiscuous. Certainly I enjoyed promiscuity. And if I hadn’t, I would have said I did! I like to conform a bit.’