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In her religious role, the Queen is head of the Church of England, but in her civic role she cares for all her subjects, and no one is better at making everyone she meets feel valued.

I love the Royal Family. The Queen, she's fabulous.

Like the Elizabeth I play, Queen Elizabeth is a monarch who actually moves with the times. She gets new information, assimilates it, and changes in order the fit in with the way the world is moving. I admire that.

Elizabeth I was my favourite monarch though, what an inspiration, she did great things for women.

If pushed to say what I like about Elizabeth, who, as I'm sure most of you know, overtook Queen Victoria this week to become our longest-serving monarch, it would be her uncomplaining, getting-on-with-it ethic.

I want to say unequivocally the Queen is magnificent. She is the enduring force, she is the glue that makes everyone feel good. She is beloved. I would rue the day when she may not be here.

I quite like the Queen. Now, this must come as a fairly amazing statement for someone who is avowedly left wing, pro-independence and anti-monarchy, but there you go.

If you look at the British royal family and take away the scandals and the goofy stuff that's going on, people love to have this king to look up to - the royals are like celebrities.

I think that the benefit of playing someone like Queen Elizabeth is that so much has been written about her, and there's so much speculation about her - was she a hermaphrodite? She's so mythologised, and there are a lot of images of her.

I like all the families in the U.K. But what I like about the idea of the royal family is... they seem like they're well educated and there's something admirable about them. And the Queen... she reminds me of my grandma.