Rachael's EastEnders dream

RACHAEL Stirling may have just put away her corset after starring in the BBC�s steamy lesbian drama, Tipping the Velvet, but the 25-year-old daughter of Dame Diana Rigg has set her sights on some slightly more modest dramatic ambitions - pulling pints at the Queen Vic in Albert Square.

Rachael would like nothing more than to take over the taps from Barbara Windsor, who is set to quit her role as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC�s EastEnders. "With a soap, you have got permanent work and have a really good time," she says.

"Those actors go in, day in, day out and they are brilliant. I would like to be the next Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders."

Although Rachael�s father, the landowner Archie Stirling, who hails from Doune, Perthshire, had to resort to watching some of the Velvet scenes behind a magazine, not surprisingly her thespian mother was less bashful. The former Avenger said: "I was so proud of Rachael. You cannot imagine the joy I felt when I saw her name come up at the top of the credits. As for the sex scenes, I was not at all embarrassed by them. After all, it was not anything I had not seen before."