So she pushed the curiosity about the man’s identity to the back of her mind – her best guess was that she’d worked with him while shooting Tasmanian short film Love Train – and proceeded with her audition,

It was only later that Foxcroft realised that the man was Tasmanian comedian, writer and actor Luke McGregor.

“I didn’t know at the time that it was Luke McGregor,’’ Foxcroft says, still slightly mortified by the oversight.

“God, I must have been the only person in Australia who didn’t know.’’

Foxcroft also felt that her audition didn’t go well and she’d blown any chance of securing a role.

“I made an awful mess of that audition,’’ she recalls, adding that at the time she just assumed it was an audition for a TV ad.

“I walked out, and I was walking down the corridor, muttering away to myself that I stuffed this up, big time. And a man in the corridor said to me “I don’t believe that’’. “But I just thought ‘that’s it, whatever it was, I’ve kissed it goodbye’.’’

Foxcroft later discovered the man in the corridor was TV producer Andy Walker, who she now affectionately describes as “the loveliest man in the whole wide world”.

Because Foxcroft didn’t blow that audition – McGregor, Walker and other television executives wanted her to star in their new show.

“A week later I got another call back,’’ Foxcroft explains. “It was at the ABC building and they said the head of ABC Comedy is down here from Sydney to see you. And I thought ‘this looks encouraging’.’’

She quickly explained why she felt she’d made such a mess of her previous audition – “Luke mumbles a bit and I couldn’t understand what he was saying’’ – and this time she was directed to “forget the script” and simply “sit down and chat’’.

Even when Foxcroft was finally offered the role of Mrs Marsh on a new TV series she still had little idea what the project was all about and never imagined how big it would eventually become.

She was invited to meet with Walker but found the TV jargon confusing at first. She was told she would be a “main player” in the show but still had no real idea what that meant.

Then there was talk of a press conference with the premier – would she be able to attend? And the Mercury wanted to do an interview, could she be there? But Foxcroft still didn’t register the enormity of what was happening.

“All of a sudden, in walks a lovely production assistant with a big pile of scripts for the whole eight episodes of the series and only then did I know what it was all about,’’ Foxcroft says. “There were eight episodes and I was going to be in every episode. And I thought ‘wow, how about that!’.’’

The show, of course, was Rosehaven – an Australian comedy series, filmed entirely in Tasmania, which has gone on to become one of the most-loved and best-performing shows for the ABC.

Set in the fictional country town of Rosehaven – which has been created by filming in Geeveston, New Norfolk, Richmond and various other parts of Southern Tasmania – the show centres around the refreshingly platonic friendship between Daniel (Luke McGregor) and Emma (Celia Pacquola), and follows their antics as they help run a small-town real estate business, owned by Daniel’s mother Barbara (Kris McQuade).

Central to the plot is Foxcroft’s much-loved character Mrs Marsh – the real estate agency’s octogenarian receptionist, who was also Daniel’s childhood babysitter.

Mrs Marsh has been there through all five seasons of the show – the fifth and final season is currently screening on ABC-TV and iview.

She often sits quietly in the background, reading a book or knitting, but then pops up to deliver witty one-liners with perfect precision, earning her a legion of fans of all ages.

Foxcroft regularly gets stopped when out in public – especially at the supermarket – and teenagers are particularly enamoured with her and her loveable Rosehaven character.

Foxcroft grew up in Perth, Western Australia. After completing her studies to become a schoolteacher, she moved to the coal mining town of Collie, 200km south of Perth, to teach. It was there she met her husband to be, Ernest.

They married in Perth in 1954 and came to Tasmania the following year.

“In those days, teachers were as rare as hen’s teeth so we could go anywhere we liked and be welcome,’’ Foxcroft says.

They planned to stay in Tasmania for a couple of years and then move on to other parts of Australia or overseas.

But they arrived in Tasmania and it was an “instant love affair’’.

“I’ve been here ever since,’’ Foxcroft says.

They started teaching in Smithton, but eventually moved to Hobart where their daughter Vicki, now 61, was born.

“It’s so beautiful, the people are lovely, we felt at home and we felt happy here so we decided to stay,’’ Foxcroft says of Tasmania.

The couple lived in West Hobart and Howrah before settling at South Arm, where Foxcroft still lives. Foxcroft taught at Clarence High School, Geilston Bay High School and Rose Bay High School.

Her husband left teaching to become a successful artist. He died in 1988 at age 74.

Foxcroft says South Arm captured their attention because they wanted somewhere out of the city, that was near the water, and also had room for an art studio.

“We weren’t ever really city people,’’ she says. “The scenery here [at South Arm] is so beautiful, it’s just a piece of paradise.’’

Foxcroft had a passion for performing as a child and young adult but life got in the way of acting as she got older.

“I’d always, even in my teenage years, been mad about theatre,’’ Foxcroft recalls.

“I attended a little private theatre school for teenagers in Perth. Then at university I was involved with university dramatics and that sort of thing. And in my first year of teaching, in Collie, there was a little repertory society so of course I joined that and did a couple of plays there.’’

When they moved to Tasmania’s North-West there was no theatre scene, much to Foxcroft’s disappointment.

“When I came to Hobart I joined the Hobart Repertory Society straight away, and my husband was also involved with that; he was much sought-after as a set designer,’’ she says.

Then the Tasman Bridge went down in 1975 and the 35-minute trip from South Arm to

Hobart suddenly took about two hours, which made getting to rehearsals and performances impossible.

“I was working full-time, and it was just out of the question to be involved with theatre,’' Foxcroft says. “So it just lay dormant.’’

That was until 2001 when South Arm residents decided their local Calverton Hall needed new stage curtains and they created a fund-raising calendar.

“We had established a curtain fund and we had about $800 in it,’’ recalls Foxcroft, who was then treasurer of the hall association. “So we started investigating – we were looking to get proper stage curtains so we were looking at something like $5000. We all looked at each other and said ‘we’ll all be dead before we raise that sort of money’.’’

A committee member came up with idea of a Bare To Be Different calendar, inspired by a similar fundraising project in Britain, which the 2003 film Calendar Girls was based on.

Foxcroft initially though the idea was “ridiculous’’ because who on earth would spend money on a “calendar of stupid old women in the buff’’.

But she happily admits she was quickly proved wrong.

The first Bare To Be Different calendar came out in 2002 and attracted worldwide media attention, with the women eventually branching out with a range of mugs and tea towels and raising a whopping $100,000.

At the height of the craziness, Foxcroft was collecting up to 800 letters a day from the local post office, containing orders from all over the world.

“Well, was I ever proved wrong,’’ Foxcroft laughs.

She didn’t appear in the first calendar, but she did appear in the next nine, as they continued making one every year.

She also starred in a stage play called The Calendar, at Hobart’s Peacock Theatre, which was inspired by real-life events.

A daughter of one of the other leading ladies ran a casting agency, and approached Foxcroft backstage after the show to see if she’d be interested in being represented and Foxcroft said “why not?’’

She did some TV and radio work, but landed her big break in her 80s with Rosehaven.

Foxcroft laughs as she recalls her first day on set at New Norfolk, bright and early, when a “gorgeous young man” approached her and said “come on, I’ll get you a wine’’.

Foxtrot was perplexed – it was only 7.30am!

But she soon realised she’d misheard and he’d actually wanted to get her a “wire” and get her fitted for a microphone.

“It got to be a real joke on set,’’ she reveals. “Come on, it’s time for a wine.’’

Being on the show has been “a really steep learning curve” but also “wonderful”, and it was sad to film the final scenes with cast and crew.

“I just feel so privileged that I was even part of it for that length of time,’’ Foxcroft says.

“My character seems to be much loved, all around Australia and it surprises me quite frankly.

“I’ve tried to ask people what it is about the character but they just say ‘she’s wonderful’. It’s enormously flattering. But I can assure you I still wear the same size hats.’’

Now in her late 80s, Foxcroft says she’s “having a well earned rest at the moment’’ and is “taking things as they come’’, but admits she still finds the whole experience unbelievable when she thinks back to her botched audition five years ago.

“It is absolutely mind blowing, to even be considered for it,’’ she says of the role.

“I still don’t know why they chose me but apparently the guy who was the head of ABC Comedy, when he saw the tapes from the auditions, he pointed to me and said ‘that’s the one’. I’m still mystified, I still can’t believe it. But it has been one of the most incredible journeys of my life.’’                                 ●

The fifth and final season of Rosehaven is currently screening on ABC-TV at 9pm on Wednesdays, or can be watched on iview.