SHE is remembered as one of history's monsters, the privileged French queen who, when she heard her people had no bread, said 'Let them eat cake'.

But a new documentary on TV tonight maintains that Marie-Antoinette was not the selfish ruler she is portrayed - and it features a Gwent actress as the queen.

Rachel Mulcahy, 29, from Malpas, pictured, takes the role of Marie-Antoinette in BBC2's Reputations this evening.

The ex-St Joseph's School pupil said: "I always used to sing as a child because I've got quite a big singing voice and when I was 18 I played the lead in a show at the Dolman Theatre. After that, I wanted to act.

"I did a three-year acting course at the Italia Conti. Some people from Newport supported me in it, which was lovely.

"My first job was in Vienna, as Mina Harker in Dracula. Not long after I got offered a pop deal and left acting for a year and a half, but it all kind of went wrong.

"It was a girl group, about the same time as the Spice Girls, and we recorded an album and everything but then the company said they didn't have the money to put into it. "I just thought 'It's not meant,' and went back to acting."

Her role as Marie-Antoinette appears on BBC2 tonight as part of the documentary series Reputations, which reassesses famous figures of history.

Rachel said: "There's no dialogue because it's a drama-documentary so all the acting is in emotional close-ups.

"I played her from when she was 15 to when she was 37, so they had to use aging make-up.

"It's really subtle - red around the eyes, wrinkles and crow's-feet added, and a lot of stuff on my lips to make them look cracked.

"But the corsets were terrible - I fainted in one of them because it was tied too tight."

Rachel is also currently playing the principal girl in Dick Whittington at Malvern Theatre, but she has ambitions to return to the small screen.

She said: "I'd love to make it into TV - a period drama or a soap. That's the way forward to me.

"If you want to change people's attitudes you need to get into their living rooms."

Reputations is on BBC2 at 9pm tonight.