Sherlock’s Una Stubbs: Benedict Cumberbatch is “gorgeous”

However she revealed that it took her a short while to come round to the full extent his physical allure.

“Especially early on you look at him and you think that’s an extraordinary face and later you think: ‘God, he’s gorgeous” and success sits very well on his shoulders now I think and that has added another layer to his appeal I think,” the actress told Radio 4 magazine show Loose Ends this weekend.

However she insists that Cumberbatch’s character Sherlock is not in love with her character Mrs Hudson in the way many women would probably like to be loved by him.

Asked by Loose Ends stand-in presenter Nikki Bedi if she is “the only Baker Street Babe that [Sherlock] is in love with" she replied: “He loves me as a Mum and he is probably grateful I’m looking after him.”

Stubbs was speaking to promote her new BBC2 Christmas Day drama The Tracdate Middoth, the M.R James ghost story adapted by Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss.

Stubbs, traditionally one of the most self-deprecating performers in the acting firmament said she plays “a silly old fool on the train” in the piece which airs at 9.30pm.

“I used to be kooky and now it’s barmy,” she joked about the roles she is now asked to play.

* Sherlock airs on BBC1 on New Year’s Day 2014

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