FAME? Maureen Carr’s head has absorbed the concept in the way Wile E. Coyote enjoyed contact with an Acme anvil.

I never wanted it,” explains the Kirkintilloch-born actress who in recent times has featured in three successful TV roles, in River City, Still Game and CBeebies show Molly and Mack. “I certainly couldn’t have coped with any of that being recognised in Morrisons when I was younger.

“In recent years, I’ve been better with the attention but it’s scary what it can do to you. You only have to look at what happened to the young guy who was in Love Island. [Mike Thalassitis – who took his own life after coming out of the show]. It can do bad things to people.”

That’s not to say Carr has never loved performing, whether with the local Ladies’ Guild or the Kirkie Players. Interestingly, she explains that while her love for acting was formed by idolising Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis and Lucille Ball, when Carr began to appear in local shows, she had never even been inside a professional theatre. “I never got to see people like Dorothy Paul or Una McLean,” she says of the role models of the day.

At four feet nine, Carr also had a contained view of the roles she was likely to land; a character actress from the outset. “I was never the ingenue,” she says. “I was never going to play Cinderella. In the Girls’ Guild production of the Wizard of Oz, I was the Lion.”

Carr bypassed drama college, (why would she attend a world she knew little off?) going straight from Scottish Youth Theatre to land her first professional job at the Traverse in Edinburgh. “I played an awful lot of young girls.” She adds. “I found myself playing kids until I was 30. Then I grew up.”

Carr, who lives in Cardonald, is back playing a young woman this week. In Chic Murray: A Funny Place for a Window, the actress plays the singing wife of the legendary comedian. Maidie Dickson, it transpires, was the real driving force behind the double act as revealed in Stuart Hepburn’s play, the little woman who falls in love with the six feet three-inch comedy giant.

The play is a snapshot of the late Forties and Fifties, a world of damp boarding houses, dragon landladies and constantly changing shows. It’s an insight into the dynamic between the couple, an unlikely love story, but a love story nonetheless.

Yet, it stretched Maidie’s commitment to breaking point. “She was just 20 when she met him,” says Carr. “Then he became more famous and the billing changed. It was the Small Doll and the Tall Droll. Then the Tall Droll and the Small Doll. Then it was Chic and Maidie. Then Chic... with Maidie.”

There’s great pathos in the play. Murray was on the cusp of national recognition when the Royal Variety Performance of 1956 was cancelled because of Suez. Then his agent was set to take him to America, but died from cancer.

The couple divorced, yet the play reveals a closeness that never really ended. “That’s the case,” says Carr of the play that allows for Dave Anderson to throw out Murray one-liners as though he were born to the role. “Chic and Maidie were a double act that was meant to be.” And meant not to be. Chic Murray became too lost in his own head. But perhaps they were finally meant to be together at the end.

“It’s a sad ending,” says Carr. “But it’s also a really funny play. How can it not be when Chic was such a genius?”

Television hasn’t gone completely for Carr . She’s still appearing in the CBeebies show. Of course, her Still Game character, the donkey-toothed Edith, a woman uglier than every insult ever conjured up, has gone forever, as has her River City drug dealer granny Theresa. Wait a minute though? Isn’t your partner Martin McCardie a River City producer? “Yes, and we have been together 29 years,” she says, smiling. And have you spoken since he killed you off? She breaks into a laugh. “Well, he says it had nothing to do with him. I have to believe that.”

Carr is philosophical about success. And it isn’t framed by the attention you get while on the telly. “Success is about working. Not fame. I’m about to appear with Witsherace (the female comedy collective) and also in Gary McNair’s play Locker Room Talk. And right now, I’m playing Maidie Dickson. This is what it’s all about and I’m grabbing it because I’m so aware it could all end tomorrow.”

Chic Murray: A Funny Place for a Window, Oran Mor, Glasgow, until Saturday, also stars Brian James O’Sullivan.