Getting older is an inescapable part of life – but after a certain age it is not always welcomed.

Glossy magazines are plastered with pictures of air-brushed-to-perfection models free from wrinkles, bingo-wings and grey hair, while supermarket aisles are chock-a-block with anti-ageing products for men and women.

But it’s time to combat the stigma attached to ageing, says star of new one-woman play Big Pants and Botox, Mary Jo Randle.

“It’s a whole societal thing, isn’t it?“ muses the actress who incidentally is dead against using botox.

She continues: “Girls worrying about lines and wrinkles, every magazine is plastered with them, from teenage magazines to older magazines. It’s a bit like cleaning products – they prey on your neurosis. Actually we’re not a society that values ageing and it’s time we did, because everybody is fearful of it.“

Big Pants and Botox, written by Mary Jo’s sister-in-law Louise Roche and directed by her brother Jack Randle, explores the character of Barbara who is grappling with passing a ’significant’ birthday.

In fact, growing up is an issue former nurse Mary Jo has been preoccupied with for many years. She explored the subject in a previous one-woman show based on her diaries as a teenager growing up in Rochdale, which she performed at Not the RSC Festival in 1987.

She says: “I remember coming up to 30 and it’s a big thing, you think: ’Oh my God, 30’. Well if I tell you this, one of my lines I did in 1987 was: ’Oh my God I’m 16 today’, that neuroses of getting older has been with me since my teenage years.“

Co-incidentally her first one-woman show is partly the reason she is speaking to me today, as her brother remembered her 1987 performance and invited her to play Barbara.

“He also told me he remembered me sitting round the table at home, making people laugh with stories about where I had been and what I was up to,“ remembers Mary Jo, who has acted in Wolf Hall, The Bill and Cutting It.

“He just thought I was dead right for Barbara.“

Putting together this production, which has required Mary Jo to memorise 44 pages of script, has been a family affair but sibling squabbles are not a factor she has to contend with.

“I don’t understand the meaning of the term,“ quips Mary Jo, who has two brothers and three sisters.

“It’s been great, he’s been very encouraging. I have never worked with him before – ever. So we were going into the unknown really, and from day one he has been terrific.“

Acting has been a part of Mary Jo’s life since she was young. She fed her interest at a youth theatre group in her home town and held ambitions of going to drama school when she was 18. But after starting a degree in drama at the University of Birmingham she had a radical change of heart.

“I couldn’t do it, it felt too hedonistic to do something as pleasurable as drama,“ admits Mary Jo. “So I did social sciences for four years and didn’t go near a theatre.“

Upon graduating she applied for a two-year nursing course, but just before she was due to start studying she realised she truly wanted to act and landed herself a last-minute place at RADA.

Many years down the line, Mary Jo finally trained as a nurse and spent just over two years working in the medical profession.

“I walked out because I knew that I didn’t want to devote the rest of my life to it and I realised that I was an actress and that’s what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing,“ says Mary Jo.

And she’s really enjoying it now, dividing her time between acting and writing, and she has recently finished writing a play which will be staged in Leicester later this year.

She says: “I’m lucky to have a job like this, it’s a great job.“

Big Pants and Botox, Wyllyotts Theatre, Darkes Lane, Potters Bar, Friday, March 27, 8pm. Details: 01707 645005, wyllyottstheatre.co.uk