Dame Joanna Lumley does not want a "memorial service" after she dies

Despite insisting she does not want a ceremony that celebrates her life, Joanna's 71-year-old husband, conductor Stephen Barlow, told her it will be his and her son Jamie's decision to honour her wish, because she will be gone.

Joanna told the new issue of Britain's HELLO! magazine: "One's conscious of growing older. And, therefore, I've got a lovely piece by Samuel Johnson, written in 1770, saying, 'I'm an old man now, so hope I get through the year and granted the grace to behave properly.'

"It's that general feeling that life goes by, good or bad, and no matter how old or young we are, we're all gonna die, so be ready for it.

"I've spoken to my husband, and he said, 'Look, your own funeral has nothing to do with you. You're not even going to be at the funeral; you'll be gone, so you can say what you like about whatever.

"So I said, 'But I don't want a memorial service.' And he said, 'That's going to be up to me and Jamie if we're around. There's no point in saying, 'I don't want one,' because you'd have gone, darling, you'd have gone.'"

The Wednesday star added: "But I like the very last poem in the book by the great sage poet, Rabindranath Tagore, who says, 'Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.'

"And you think, 'Oh, that's just amazing."

Joanna is starring in a short film called My Week With Maisy.

It follows Mrs. Foster - a cynical woman about to start chemotherapy for cancer - and the titular character, Maisy Jones, a seriously ill yet optimistic child.

Through an unlikely friendship, Maisy teaches Mrs Foster to be grateful and hopeful, but to also respect the inevitability of death.

Speaking on the short movie, Joanna told My Weekly magazine: "We all own death. It doesn't discriminate. Good or bad, it will come to all of us. Just as we all are born. So, there is something within My Week With Maisy that makes us jump, that makes us sit up and take notice.

"Maisy seems to be much more accepting of what is happening to her than Mrs Foster."

My Week With Maisy will be shown at film festivals, but Joanna hopes it will be released for everyone to watch so its message can reach those undergoing chemotherapy.

The Absolutely Fabulous legend said: "I have obviously met people who have been through it - we all have.

"Very, very fortunately I haven't experienced it myself, but we are all surrounded by cancer - it's everywhere. And the more we learn about it, the more it's talked about, the more we understand it."