Frances Barber has a special message for all the men who have loved her, lived with her and fought tooth and nail with her. "I want them to know they were right," she says. "It was my fault each time I smashed them in the face with whatever came to hand. And they had every right to tell me I needed help."

She laughs as she makes this admission but Frances is deadly serious, too.

"I wasn't very good at relationships," she says. "I've blamed men in the past, but I will say to all those men out there who said I was mad and that I needed a psychotherapist, they were right!"

These words may bring a wry smile to the lips of her former partners, including actors David Threlfall and Neil Pearson. Neil was particularly upset after Frances talked about a "re-birthing" experience she had on holiday in Bali a year or so ago.

"The teacher I had drove me mad," says Frances, 43, who returns this week in the BBC Choice comedy Having It Off. "I was lying back and she suddenly opened my legs, swept my bikini bottoms aside and blew up my vagina. She was trying to give me her energy. She also asked me to think about men who have wronged me and to send them, in my mind, to a nice place. I sent two to Kosovo and one to Belfast.

"I told someone this and an article appeared. Then Neil rang and said, 'Every time you say something vile about men everybody thinks it's me, so just shut your f***ing face'!"

Frances who is in fits of giggles at the recollection, insists, "I didn't mean him, not at all. We're mates now, but he gets so angry whenever I talk about men."

She can be so frank about her past because she is happy in the present, thanks to therapy and to the new man in her life.

"I have met somebody," she says, although she won't name him. "It's early days. He is sort of in showbusiness, but he's not an actor. He lives in the Highlands. I met him when I was working on Skye on the film 24 Hours In The Life Of A Woman. He still fell for me, despite the fact I was playing a lesbian with a clubfoot and a bad cough... but I was wearing a corset at the time. The only thing is, he and my bulldog Smack are a bit jealous of each other."

Today, talking over lunch in the bar of London's Langham Hilton, Frances looks remarkable for her age. She is wearing a fitted shirt with a navy tie, a mock suede grey skirt, a wide belt, fishnet tights and knee-high stiletto boots. Her punkish hairdo only adds to her fun, youthful appearance. The sense of independence she exudes is mirrored by the characters she plays. When she burst onto the scene in Sammy And Rosie Get Laid in 1987, director Stephen Frears called her "the least prudish actress" he'd ever known. Since then her characters in Morse, Rhodes, Real Women and The Gentleman Thief have continued to push back boundaries. But while her career took off, Frances was battling depression.

Growing up one of six children in a council flat in Wolverhampton, she took it hard when her mum Gladys died of cancer in 1991. A year later she lost her brother Graham in a car crash. Frances has also faced some hard decisions, including having abortions. But whenever things got tough, she sought help.

"If there is one thing I'm proud of, it's that I tried to confront my demons," says Frances, who was in therapy for 12 years. "It is horrible to do it, but there is nothing worse than being unhappy."

These days she has a lot to smile about. Last year she was in the Pet Shop Boys' West End musical Closer To Heaven, and in the TV drama Manchild she threatened her ex's manhood with a machete. Now in her first sitcom, Having It Off, she is salon boss April Summers - a foul-mouthed, sex-mad homophobe.

"It is quite filthy," says Frances. "During recording we had to keep stopping because women in the audience were laughing so much."

The series will further consolidate Frances as a gay icon.

"A friend of mine is a gay man and if we are both still single at 60 we're going to live with each other and have a nice life."

Somehow, you can't imagine her, even at 60, being content with that.