Stephanie Beacham may have endeared herself to a whole new generation of fans with her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, but the former Dynasty actress is back to doing what she does best at Fairfield Halls this week.

And my how she does it.

The 63-year-old is simply superb - there is no other word for it - as opera diva Maria Callas in Theatre Royal Bath's touring production of Master Class.

On stage for the entirety of both acts it is a sign of her class as an actress how she remembers the thousands of lines she has and that she keeps up the Greek accent without faltering even once.

She captures the domineering attitude of la Divina perfectly with everything from the way she sits with a straight back to telling the audience: "If you cannot hear me, it's your fault. You are not concentrating hard enough."

The play joins Callas in the latter stages of her short life when, with her voice gone, she is teaching master classes to three operatic hopefuls and cannot resist telling them they are doing everything wrong and why it was she was so successful.

Twice, Beacham descends into 10-minute long monologues with just her on stage under the spotlight and her ability to transfix everyone in the theatre was astonishing.

There were no whispers or turning of heads, all eyes were fixed on her as she played out the major successes of her life on the stage and her romances off it with elderly husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini and the man she left him for, womanising Aristotle Onassis.

Having never been an opera fan I didn't think I would enjoy this but there is very little opera itself in the performance and the play is a sheer triumph for the acting alone with the story reducing some in the sadly sparse crowd to tears.

It's witty too with plenty of funny moments.

I left having thoroughly enjoyed myself and, with Callas' advice to always make an entrance entrenched in my brain, I found myself planning the best way to swing open the double doors going into the office the next morning.

If you can see this at Fairfield Halls before the end of the week I urge you to do so because it is top quality acting that has not been seen in the Ashcroft Theatre for many years.