"I think Queen Victoria is just as entertaining a character as Sybil Fawlty ever was," says Prunella Scales, the Fawlty Towers favourite who will be swapping one imperious female for another.

With Scales in the lead role, An Evening With Queen Victoria (June 19, Capitol) is the highlight of Fanfare 2005, Horsham's district arts festival, and can also be seen this Sunday at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park Theatre (01323 412000).

Accompanied live by tenor Ian Partridge and pianist Michel Dussek, the play is an intimate portrait of Britain's longest reigning monarch told - via diaries and letters - through the queen's own words.

From an old lady in her last days at Osborne House back to the young, impetuous princess who hated lessons and loved dancing, the evening touches on every aspect of Victoria's long reign, including her relationships with key male figures such as Prince Albert, John Brown and Disraeli.

A subtler actor than her signature role might suggest, Scales portrays a surprising and at times contradictory character.

"The general feeling about Queen Victoria is that she's this forbidding old matron who shut herself away in Balmoral after her husband's death," says Scales. " 'We are not amused' is the most famous thing she ever said. Actually, she was a very passionate, very vulnerable, highly intelligent and highly amusable person."

Opening tonight with Swansea City Opera's production of The Barber Of Seville, Fanfare 2005 is a programme of music, dance, drama, comedy, art and live literature taking place at Horsham's Capitol and surrounding venues.

Other highlights include Rebecca Carrington (Capitol Studio, Monday), a cellist-cum-impressionist whose spoofs of everything from Mozart to Madonna have made her a star of the cabaret circuit, and Sixties legends The Searchers (Capitol, June 17).

For full details, log on to www.thecapitolhorsham.com