The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The morning after the opening of Hamlet in New York in 2000. The reviews were good and I actually punched the air – a very un-Simon Russell Beale thing to do.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 January 2011 source ↗
On holiday in Orlando with my wife, Kate, and kids just before lockdown. I wasn’t drinking or gambling. I was so happy, so at peace with myself – I’d been searching for that for many a year.
I can't remember a time when I was happier than now, to be honest – though that's always been the case.
The summer of 1997. My husband, who is an American, gave up everything to come and live with me in Edinburgh when we were students, and we were so skint but we had so much fun.
Most recently, going to a 1D concert at Wembley with my nine-year-old daughter. Seeing her dream becoming real. The highlight was meeting a nice man in the elevator when it was over, who gave her Harry's autograph. Turned out to be his dad. To my daughter that was like meeting the archangel Gabriel.
Cybill Shepherd, Sue Johnston, Archie Panjabi, Stephen Dorff, Warwick Davis, Nicholas Parsons
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