Oscar-winning actress and former UK MP Glenda Jackson has bemoaned the lack of improvement in roles written for women in the 25 years she was away from the stage.

The former Labour politician, 80, received glowing reviews when she returned to the theatre for her take on the traditionally male leading role in King Lear at London’s Old Vic, but said there has been scant advancement in parts written for actresses.

Speaking just before she won a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for best Shakespearean performance, she said: “I’ve been away from it for 25 years and I was moaning when I left at … how creative writers don’t find women interesting, they are always adjunct to the male driving dramatic energy and I come back after 25 years and it’s exactly the same situation.

“Why do creative writers find women so boring or stick us in some homogeneous box that we are all the same?

“Partly because that is still the prevailing view, nine times out of 10.

“A woman is a success, it is deemed she is the exception to her gender rule, a woman fails and it just proves women are all essentially failures, I don’t see any change in that at all.”

Glenda said she was not advocating for more women to follow her example and take on male roles but instead said: “I would advocate for more writers finding women interesting and seeing we are not this homogeneous group you can stick into a box.”

However, she said she was delighted to win the Trewin award for best Shakespearean performance at the ceremony, where the winners were chosen by critics.

She said: “I’ve been very rude to the critics in the past and critics have been very rude to me in the past so we can treat this as kiss and make up.”