Three Dames and a Duchess

Helen Mirren, Eileen Atkins and Peggy Ashcroft perform the same scene from The Duchess of Malfi.

The eponymous heroine of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi is not the biggest role in the story but it's one of the few plays from the 17th century that has a female as the main character.

The mixture of tragedy, secret liaisons, raw emotion and betrayal has cemented the Duchess as one of the great roles in the female canon.

Eileen Atkins and Charles Kay in the BBC TV production

Here, we present the same scene from the play by three of Britain's most respected actresses: Peggy Ashcroft, Eileen Atkins and Helen Mirren.

This extract from Act 1, Scene 3 is a crucial moment in which the Duchess proposes to Antonio, her secret lover, despite being forbidden to marry by her ruthless siblings.

Helen Mirren radiates intensity with Pete Postlethwaite in the sparse 1980 staging by Adrian Noble - a production which gained rave reviews.

It's a different style from Eileen Atkins' performance opposite Gary Bond in the 1972 BBC production, which was filmed on location at Chastleton House in Oxfordshire. While Peggy Ashcroft performs in a 1954 BBC radio version of the play.