Sarah Lancashire
Birthday: Born in 1964-10-04 in Oldham, Lancashire, England, UK
Deathday: Alive
Sarah Lancashire is an English actress whose career began in 1986. Lancashire's first acting roles were in local theatre, with small guest roles in television dramas and sitcoms. After coming to public attention with roles in popular programmes including Coronation Street (1991-1996, 2000), Where the Heart Is (1997–1999) and Clocking Off (2000), Lancashire signed a two-year golden handcuffs contract with the ITV network, appearing exclusively in ITV1 programming for the next two years. Lancashire has continued to work extensively across a variety of television drama genres, including guest appearances, regular roles in returning series and with featured roles in standalone miniseries' and television films. Her more prolific work includes the drama series' Lark Rise to Candleford (2008-2011), Last Tango in Halifax (2012-2020) and Happy Valley (2014, 2016, 2023). Lancashire has appeared in the feature films And When Did You Last See Your Father? and Dad's Army and has returned to West End Theatre several times since her 1990 stint in Blood Brothers. Her combined acting credits have earned Lancashire a number of awards and nominations over a career spanning four decades and a prominent status within the British Television Industry of the 21st century. Lancashire was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
TV Credits
Where the Heart Is
Character: Ruth Goddard
Where the Heart Is is a British television family drama series set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Skelthwaite. It focuses on the professional and personal lives of the district nurses who work in the town....
Murder Most Horrid
Character: Karen Sullivan
A comedy that started in 1991 as a pilot, Murder Most Horrid stars Dawn French as various characters, as she embarks on a different mystery every episode. In one way or another she is involved with murder - either committing the crime herself or even getting bumped off herself!...
Skins
Character: Mary
Irreverent comedy drama which follows the messy lives, loves, delirious highs and inevitable lows of a group of raucous teenage friends in Bristol....
The One Show
Character: Self - Guest
A topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One....
Julia
Character: Julia Child
Through Julia Child’s life and her singular joie de vivre, the series explores a pivotal time in American history – the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women's movement, the nature of celebrity and America's cultural evolution....
Lark Rise to Candleford
Character: Adult Laura
Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm-workers, craftsmen and gentry at the end of the 19th Century. Lark Rise to Candleford is a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance....
Wuthering Heights
Character: Nelly Dean
Foundling Heathcliff is raised by the wealthy Earnshaws in Yorkshire but in later life launches a vendetta against the family....
Oliver Twist
Character:
Oliver is born into poverty and misfortune - the son of an unmarried mother, who dies shortly after his birth. He is soon delivered to the workhouse, where the cruel Mr. Bumble oversees children tormented by starvation and suffering. When Oliver dares to ask for more gruel, he finds himself cast out and forced to make his own way in the world......
Rose and Maloney
Character:
Rose and Maloney investigate old criminal cases, seeking to rectify miscarriages of justice....
The Rotters' Club
Character: Barbara Chase
Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' adaptation of Jonathon Coe's novel follow a group of Birmingham teenagers, and their families, through the 1970s....
Five Daughters
Character: Rosemary Nicholls
The stories of five young women who were tragically murdered in Ipswich in 2006....
Last Tango in Halifax
Character: Caroline
Celia and Alan are both widowed and in their seventies. When their respective grandsons put their details on Facebook, they rediscover a passionate relationship that started over sixty years ago....
Doctor Who
Character: Miss Foster
The Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it....
Happy Valley
Character: Catherine Cawood
Happy Valley is a dark, funny, multi-layered thriller revolving around the personal and professional life of Catherine, a dedicated, experienced, hard-working copper. She is also a bereaved mother who looks after her orphaned grandchild....
The Paradise
Character: Miss Audrey
An intoxicating love story set in England's first department store in the 1870s. The Paradise revolves around the lives of the people who live and work in the store, each bound in their own way by the power of the world they live in, and the pasts that follow them there. A love story, mystery, and social comedy all in one. ...
Alan Bennett's Talking Heads
Character: Gwen
Widely celebrated as Alan Bennett's masterpieces, his multi-award-winning Talking Heads return to BBC One. Filmed during lockdown under social distancing guidelines, a new generation of Britain's finest actors star in 10 of Bennett's classic scripts, alongside two brand new Talking Heads penned by the acclaimed writer last year....
Clocking Off
Character: Yvonne Kolakowski
How much do you know about the person working next to you? From the outside, life at Mackintosh Textiles appears to run smoothly, but in a community with so many secrets to hide, things are far from straightforward. In six powerful, self-contained dramas, everyday life is fractured by tumultuous marriages, snatched passions, disappearing husbands and gang harassment....
The Glass
Character: Carol Parker
Jim Proctor, a middle-aged tycoon, decides to hand over his glass-making company to his young nephew Paul Duggan....
Black Doves
Character: Mrs. Reed
When a spy posing as a politician's wife learns her lover has been murdered, an old assassin friend joins her on a quest for truth — and vengeance....
Oliver Twist
Character: Mrs. Corney
Oliver is born into poverty and misfortune - the son of an unmarried mother, who dies shortly after his birth. He is soon delivered to the workhouse, where the cruel Mr. Bumble oversees children tormented by starvation and suffering. When Oliver dares to ask for more gruel, he finds himself cast out and forced to make his own way in the world......
Kiri
Character: Miriam Grayson
A drama dealing with the abduction and murder of a young black girl, soon to be adopted by her white foster family, and the trail of lies, blame, guilt and notoriety which follow....
Going Live!
Character: Self
Going Live! was a Saturday morning magazine show, broadcast on BBC1 between 1987 and 1993. It was presented by Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene. Other presenters included Trevor and Simon, Peter Simon, Emma Forbes, and puppet Gordon the Gopher. The show was broadcast during the autumn to spring seasons, with other shows such as the 8:15 from Manchester and Parallel 9 taking over during the summer months. It was preceded by Saturday Superstore, and succeeded by Live & Kicking. In 1988, when ...
All the Small Things
Character: Esther Caddick
Uplifting drama series from the writer of Cutting It about family and community, played out with rousing choruses, joyous harmonies and booming basslines....
Coronation Street
Character: Raquel Watts
The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap....
Coronation Street
Character: Raquel Wolstenhulme / Raquel Watts
The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap....
The Accident
Character: Polly Bevan
Tragedy strikes the welsh town of Glyngolau when an accident on a construction site kills a group of trespassing children. Grief quickly turns to anger and the families cry for justice. But as the gears of justice slowly turn, challenging truths begin to emerge. It falls to the Council Leader’s wife, Polly, to hold the community together, all the while also caring for a daughter – the only survivor of the collapse. And as those in charge fail to deliver closure for the town, it’s up to her to le...
Happy Valley
Character:
Happy Valley is a dark, funny, multi-layered thriller revolving around the personal and professional life of Catherine, a dedicated, experienced, hard-working copper. She is also a bereaved mother who looks after her orphaned grandchild....
The Cry
Character: Meg Bartlett
Psychological thriller about a woman child-protection officer tramautized by her stillbirth who befriends a woman in hospital and then becomes convinced that the daughter is being abused....
School of Roars
Character: Mrs. Twirlyhorn
Class is in session for mini-monsters Wufflebump, Meepa, Icklewoo, Wingston and Yummble, who learn quirky lessons from their teacher Miss Grizzlesniff....
Movie Credits
Gentlemen's Relish
Character: Violtet Askey
The career of the once successful classical portraitist, Kingdom Swann, has hit bad times. When a leading gallery rejects his work, he seems at the point of giving up. It is only the support of his housekeeper, Violet Askey, that keeps him going and it is she who encourages him to switch to photography. Soon Swann has developed a healthy (and respectable) business with portraits of naked women in classical and exotic settings. However, the nature of Swann's new work is open to misinterpretation ...
Coronation Street - The Feature Length Special
Character: Raquel Watts
Some burning questions will be answered when five of our best loved Coronation Street characters embark upon the cruise of a lifetime. Will we see another side to Curly, Raquel, Rita, Mavis, and Alec as they enjoy the sunny Mediterranean cruising? Can the dark, starry nights on board the world's most romantic cruise-liner spark the passion in Curly and Raquel's difficult relationship or will they be sailing into troubled waters?...
Sons & Lovers
Character: Gertrude Morel
Filmmaker Stephen Whittaker adapts author D.H. Lawrence's simmering tale of sex, love, and family. In the years leading up to World War I, the problems faced by many families were uncannily similar to the issues that mankind would still be struggling with nearly a century later. Human relationships remain as fragile as ever, and the only constant in life seems to be a humbling sense of uncertainty. Sarah Lancashire stars in a drama detailing the anguish of first love, and the awkward confusion o...
When Did You Last See Your Father?
Character: Beaty
The story of a son's conflicting memories of his dying father....
Dad's Army
Character: Mrs. Pike
A cinema remake of the classic sitcom Dad's Army (1968). The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German spy as World War II draws to its conclusion....
The Dresser
Character: Madge
One fateful night in a small English regional theatre during World War II a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeares King Lear. Bombs are falling, sirens are wailing, the curtain is up in an hour but the actor/manager Sir who is playing Lear is nowhere to be seen. His dresser Norman must scramble to keep the production alive but will Sir turn up in time and if he does will he be able to perform that night? The Dresser is a wickedly funny and deeply moving story of friendship a...
Sex, the City and Me
Character: Ruth Gilbert
Fast-paced and powerful drama set in the high-octane world of the City of London....
Birthday Girl
Character: Rachel Jones
A woman decides to celebrate her recovery from leukaemia by throwing a party. But before the big night, she discovers that the illness has returned. She decides to postpone telling everyone until the aprty is over, but during the evening she discovers that she is not the only one with a secret....
Back Home
Character: Peggy Dickinson
The war in Europe is over, but the one at home has only just begun. The Second World War is ending and throughout Britain, evacuees are returning home to their families - but not the families they remember. Like so many other women, Peggy’s life has been transformed by the war. Living and working with good friends, she is happier than she has been for years. Yet Peggy’s life is not the only one changed by the war. Her daughter, Rusty, has just returned from the U.S., where she has been living as...
Seeing Red
Character: Coral Atkins
Coral Atkins, a British soap star of the 1970s, becomes deeply affected by the plight of children from troubled homes. Against considerable odds, Coral harnesses her celebrity to launch a crusade to establish her own home to care for the children. Based on the memoirs of Coral Atkins....
Cherished
Character: Angela Cannings
A drama based on the true story of Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of killing two of her children, on the basis of "expert witness" evidence about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Cot Death Syndrome) which has since been discredited....
Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen
Character: Narrator
With 2015 marking the 100th anniversary of the first British policewoman being given the power of arrest, this film takes us through the remarkable history of 100 years of Britain's female police force. It explores the individual careers and ambitions of women police officers who, through their bravery and guile, were determined to succeed in a profession that never wanted them. It is a story about ingenuity and determination as well as law and order. A Fair Cop is a hidden history of our societ...
The First Film
Character: Lizze Le Prince (voice)
Leeds born filmmaker David Nicholas Wilkinson's thirty three year quest to prove that the worlds film industry started in Leeds, Yorkshire, England in 1888....
Yesterday
Character: Liz (Liverpool Stranger)
A struggling musician realizes he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where the group was forgotten....
Everybody's Talking About Jamie
Character: Margaret New
Jamie New is 16 and doesn’t quite fit in—instead of pursuing a "real" career he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure: he is going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mom and his amazing friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies and steps out of the darkness, into the spotlight....
My Fragile Heart
Character: Trina Lavery
Trina Lavery returns home to Stoke after 20 years, to look after her ill mother. She learns that Bernard Cleve is also living in Stoke. Bernard was accused of killing Trinas best friend many years ago but was never convicted. Another girl is killed and Bernard is again a suspect. Trina thinks he is innocent but places herself in danger in trying to prove it....
Christmas at St Paul's
Character:
For the first time in its history, St Paul's has granted the BBC privileged access to film behind the scenes in the countdown to Christmas and on the big day itself....
In Search of Tony Blair
Character: Self (Narrator)
Ten years after he stepped to power as Labour leader, Tony Blair remains a national enigma. His persona as a fresh-faced idealist and man of the people has been shattered, most significantly by the war on Iraq. Now many are struggling to understand what remains behind the faltering smile....