They say creative talent runs in families and in the case of Peter Bowles and his daughter Sasha, it’s certainly true. Everyone knows Peter in To the Manor Born and The Irish RM, Rumpole of the Bailey and Executive Stress – but he also has an impressive stage CV (I saw him at Brighton’s Theatre Royal as the wicked Judge in Hedda Gabler and he was chilling) as well as some interesting parts like the English barbarian in the award- winning I Claudius.

He’s lived in Barnes for many years, but we’re all meeting at Sasha’s airy studio in Putney, just down the road from where she lives with her husband and her fifteen-year-old daughter Jasmine, who goes to school also in Putney. We are attended by Sasha’s lovely cocker spaniel Molly, who seems unconcerned that she comes from such a creative family. Peter and Sasha are both having a busy summer: Peter is starring in The Waltz of the Toreadors by Jean Anouilh at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre – it’s packing the house night after night. Meanwhile Sasha has had her own art exhibition at the Queen Street Gallery in the same city – equally well attended – and now she’s home preparing for exhibitions in Brighton and Wandsworth.

Surprisingly, though the entire world knows Peter as Richard De Vere, suave, polished, handsome millionaire in To the Manor Born, over coffee he reveals in his lovely, self-deprecating manner, that he never watched them. There was, he recalls, that embarrassing moment when an American TV company was making a documentary on sitcoms and they got him to the Savoy two or three years ago. "They sat me down and set up all the cameras – big time – not just digital. They asked me – what about that scene? And I had to say – well no, I don’t remember. The thing is, they’re shot so quickly and you have to learn your lines rapidly and I was in a play on the stage at the time. And I’ve never watched them. Maybe one or two. I’ve certainly not watched all the Rumpoles. But I did love doing them. And as I’ve got older, it’s lovely to learn that young people are watching these series on digital TV and being nice to me. I’m absolutely thrilled."

But, I point out, they haven’t dated. The characters he played are still as vivid and real as ever. "Well," he leans in conspiratorially with that winning smile he has. "Shall I give you an exclusive? We’ve agreed to do one of those Whatever Happened to….. for Manor Born. I haven’t seen the script yet, but I think it will be a Christmas special." People want to know, I point out, what became of Audrey and Richard – are they happily married? "Or are they in an old folks’ home?" Peter adds. "Have I still got the moustache?"

He’s enjoying being in Chichester and loves the play. "It’s the greatest play that Anouilh wrote, a very challenging role. It’s very funny, high farce, with a tremendous undertone of tragedy, which is centred on getting old. It’s about a man whose virility is diminishing, but inside he feels he’s still a young man. He thinks he doesn’t love his wife but in fact he does, of course."

Peter has no such problems – he’s a family man in every sense. "I’m enormously proud of my children," he says, "and I know Sasha’s work is wonderful. I’ve been collecting paintings since before she was born, so we’ve always talked about art and shared that interest. We also have two sons – one is a mathematician and one is an athlete. I used to take both boys running – and they starting beating me when they were twelve!"

Sasha’s paintings, not surprisingly, have a kind of theatrical quality to them. She paints a narrative, in which people are relating or not to each other. She raises a lot of questions. "I think they have an undercurrent," she says. "Not everything is rosy in life. There’s a level of communication between people that’s difficult and complex. For me, the idea is that they’re a small piece of a story and it’s up to the viewer to decide what that narrative is and where it’s going. I find when I exhibit that people tell me all about the picture and they’re really telling me about themselves. Everyone has a different take on what I’ve painted. Hopefully, they’re a conversation between me and whoever is looking at them."

So does Sasha know the whole story? "No, I don’t. That’s the thing about people – you never know the entire story even if you’re married to someone. You just get pieces of people – and that’s what I paint. I try to offset the edgy undercurrent with enticing colours and hopefully, that gives the viewer time to reflect and make an interpretation."

Sasha did a Foundation Course in the Central School of Art and Design, then a degree in Fine Art at Byam School. "I enjoyed everything I studied, but painting was my passion. As a child, I was very visual, always making and painting things. I didn’t paint for about 11 years because I wanted to do it full time or not at all – so I made things in pewter and boxes of mirrors and frames and sold them to Liberty’s and Heal’s. Then three years ago, my daughter went to secondary school and I thought – if you don’t do it now, you never will. I gave up everything else and now I paint full time. It’s turned out well for me."

Sasha has done an impressive array of exhibitions all over the country, some very local in Barnes, Teddington, Sheen and Chiswick, but Chichester in June was her first one-woman show. "It was exciting to see all my work up in one place. How it fitted together." Now she is getting ready for Brighton and Wandsworth. "I’m looking forward to them. I find it hugely flattering when people stand and look at my pictures, never mind what they say!"

DVD sets of Rumpole of the Bailey, To the Manor Born and The Irish RM are on sale, produced by Acorn Media. Their website is: www.acornmediauk.com.