Maxine Peake
Birthday: Born in 1974-07-14 in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, UK
Deathday: Alive
Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, radio, film and television actress, playwright, producer, director and political activist, who made her name as Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies. She has since played Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, barrister Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk and Grace Middleton in The Village. She is also an accomplished stage actress, having played the title role in Hamlet, and had a role in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. In 2018 she played the lead in the film Funny Cow and had a starring role in Mike Leigh's epic Peterloo, a film very close to her heart.
TV Credits
dinnerladies
Character: Twinkle
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, m...
Early Doors
Character: Janice
A sitcom set in a small pub in Manchester, “The Grapes”, where daily life is bound up in the issues of love, loneliness, and blocked urinals. Regular drinkers Joe and Duffy pass the time with landlord Ken and his police officer cronies....
ChuckleVision
Character:
ChuckleVision is a long-standing British children's series broadcast from 1987 to 2009. The Chuckle Brothers' famous comedy involves slapstick, other visual gags, wordplay, and catchphrases such as "To me, to you!" and "Oh dear, oh dear!"...
Jonathan Creek
Character: Marion Cretiss
Working from his home in a converted windmill, Jonathan Creek is a magician with a natural ability for solving puzzles. He soon puts this ability to the use of solving impossible crimes and mysterious murders....
Shameless
Character:
The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of ...
Comedy Connections
Character:
Comedy Connections was a BBC One documentary series produced by BBC Scotland that aired from 2003 to 2008. The show looked at the stories behind the production of some of Britain's comedy television programmes, showing how they tied in with the production of other comedy shows. The show featured interviews with some of the cast and crew of the subject programme, as well as footage from the series. Comedy Connections mostly documented BBC comedies and sitcoms, although two programmes have been f...
Dalziel & Pascoe
Character:
British crime drama based on the "Dalziel and Pascoe" series of books by Reginald Hill, set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton. The unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-china-shop-copper Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick Detective Sargent, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining a down to earth wit and humour....
Criminal Justice
Character: Juliet Miller
Thriller by Peter Moffat about the challenges and politics of the criminal justice system seen through the eyes of the accused....
Little Dorrit
Character: Miss Wade
Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked....
Fairy Tales
Character:
Four contemporary adaptations of classic fairy tales, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Emperor's New Clothes and Billy Goats Gruff....
The Street
Character:
Anthology drama following the lives and passions of neighbors on a northern English street....
Star Wars: Visions
Character: Kalina Kalfus (voice)
This anthology of animated shorts from around the world celebrates the mythos of Star Wars through unique cultural lenses....
Red Riding
Character:
Thrilling trilogy of films based on David Peace's cult noir novels about Yorkshire during the 1970s and 80s: a world of paranoia, corruption and the terrifying legacy of the Ripper murders....
Timeshift
Character: Self - Narrator
Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past....
The Village
Character: Grace Middleton
The Village tells the story of life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character, Bert Middleton....
Silk
Character: Martha Costello
Silk is a British television drama series produced by the BBC and first shown in 2011. Written by Peter Moffat, the series follows a set of barristers, and what they do to attain the rank of Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk."...
Room at the Top
Character: Alice Aisgill
Joe leaves working-class, industrial Dufton behind him and takes a job as senior audit clerk at the town hall in affluent Warley. He takes lodgings at the poshest part of the town and starts to make his mark on local society....
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Character: Photocopy Assistant
Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor....
Messiah
Character: DS Vickie Clarke
Crime drama series following the investigations of DCI Red Metcalfe....
Alan Bennett's Talking Heads
Character: Miss Fozzard
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: Marie Leach
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....
Rules of the Game
Character: Sam Thompson
Sam is a hard-headed manager at a family-run business in the North West. However, when Sam arrives at work one day to find a dead body in the office reception she is forced to reckon with not only murky behaviour in the present, but murderous secrets from the past as well....
Sunburn
Character: Sue
Sunburn is a British television series that followed the lives of a group of British holiday reps. It was broadcast on BBC One between 16 January 1999 and 1 May 2000, running for two series of six and eight episodes respectively. The first was set and filmed in Cyprus and the second in Algarve. The cast included Michelle Collins, Rebecca Callard, Sharon Small, George Layton and Sean Maguire, with Paul Nicholas joining later. The series was created by Mike Bullen, who was interested in the behind...
Three Girls
Character: Sara Rowbotham
The story of three of the children who were victims in the 2012 grooming and sex trafficking case in Rochdale, for which nine men were convicted and sentenced. The drama explores how these girls were groomed, how they were ignored by the authorities directly responsible for protecting them, and how they eventually made themselves heard....
Art That Made Us
Character: Self - Actrice (Rules of the Game, Anne)
An alternative history of the British Isles, told through art. Looking at 1,500 years and eight dramatic turning points, acclaimed artists and thinkers encounter key historic art works from across the UK that have shaped the history of the British Isles and inspired their own work....
See No Evil: The Moors Murders
Character: Myra Hindley
See No Evil: The Moors Murders is a British two-part television serial directed by Christopher Menaul. It was produced by Granada Television and broadcast on ITV during May 2006. It tells the story of the Moors Murders, which were committed during the 1960s by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, from the view of Hindley's sister Maureen Smith and her husband David....
The Devil's Whore
Character: Elizabeth Lilburne
Set between the years 1642 and 1660, "The Devil's Whore" charts the progress of the English Civil War through the eyes of the a 17 year old girl, the fictional Angelica Fanshawe....
Shameless
Character: Veronica Fisher
The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of ...
Black Mirror
Character: Bella
Over the last ten years, technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives before we've had time to stop and question it. In every home; on every desk; in every palm - a plasma screen; a monitor; a smartphone - a black mirror of our 21st Century existence....
The Graham Norton Show
Character: Self
Each week celebrity guests join Irish comedian Graham Norton to discuss what's being going on around the world that week. The guests poke fun and share their opinions on the main news stories. Graham is often joined by a band or artist to play the show out....
Linda Green
Character: Receptionist
Linda's a Manchester girl, born and bred. She's in her early 30s and the friends she has now are the same friends she's had since primary school. By day she potters around in Craven Lane Motors selling cars and flirting with mechanics. But when night time comes around she can usually be found singing her heart out on stage at the Lee Lane Social Club. Her best friend Michelle may be settled and happy with her boyfriend and kids, but Linda's single and loving it. She may not have found Mr Right j...
Secret Life of the Safari Park
Character: Narrator
The denizens at Knowsley Safari, the longest safari drive in the UK and home to hundreds of wild animals from across the world, roam free on its grounds. The documentary explores the lives of these extraordinary animals, and the work of those who care for them, as well as the amazing, and at times hilarious, dashcam footage of visitors to Knowsley....
The Bisexual
Character: Sadie
Leila takes a break from her decade long relationship with partner Sadie, and begins to explore her own bisexuality....
Say Nothing
Character: Older Dolours Price
Through the eyes of various Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, explore the extremes some people will go to in the name of their beliefs, the way a deeply divided society can suddenly tip over into armed conflict, the long shadow of radical violence for both victims and perpetrators, and the emotional and psychological costs of a code of silence....
The Hollow Crown
Character: Doll Tearsheet
A series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays....
Anne
Character: Anne Williams
Anne Williams, from Formby, near Liverpool, was devastated by the loss of her son, 15-year-old Kevin, who was tragically killed at the FA Cup semi-final in 1989 between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Anne stood defiantly alongside other parents and their families who fought for justice for the 96 loved ones who lost their lives at a football match....
Inside No. 9
Character: Nadia
An anthology of darkly comic twisted tales, each one taking place behind a door marked 'number 9'....
Movie Credits
The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
Character: Self
Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced....
Where We Used to Meet
Character:
While caring for their dying mother, a child finds solace in a group of friends, but begins to encounter violence at every turn....
Dance First
Character: Barbara
Parisian bon vivant, World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse…Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos “Dance first, think later”, the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon....
Clubbed
Character: Angela
An underworld drama set in the early 1980s, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman....
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
Character: Anne Lister
A lesbian in the 1800s who keeps a detailed account of her life written in coded diaries attempts to live independently while juggling an affair with a married woman....
The Real Anne: Unfinished Business
Character: Self- Presenter
The story of Merseyside mum and campaigner Anne Williams, who lost her son Keven. For nearly three decades she fought the English establishment to expose the truth of what really happened at Hillsborough, and to try and get justice for the 97....
Christmas Lights
Character: Pauline
Robson Green and Mark Benton co-star in Christmas Lights, a one-off comedy drama for ITV1 centred on two lifelong friends who have always competed with each other. The festive season brings on new challenges and takes their rivalry to extremes resulting in the two friends forgetting what Christmas is really about. Can anything bring them to their senses?...
Tish
Character: Tish Murtha (voice)
A working-class photographer captures the impact of Thatcherism on the north of England but is unable to escape the poverty and inequality she exposed....
Wendell & Wild
Character: Irmgard Klaxon (voice)
Two demon brothers enlist the aid of Kat Elliot — a tough teen with a load of guilt — to summon them to the Land of the Living. But what Kat demands in return leads to a brilliantly bizarre and comedic adventure like no other....
Edge
Character: Elly
A hotel. A cliff. Six lost people, looking for something, or looking to lose themselves....
Woken
Character: Helen
In a post-apocalyptic world, the isle provides a safe haven from a pandemic that has decimated earth. Anna wake up pregnant and unable to remember who her husband is. Nor does Anna recognize Helen and Peter who are supposedly helping her get her health back. Disbelief in what she is being told leads to a horrible revelation and Anna having to contend with existential issues brought on by man’s destruction of the planet....
Svengali
Character: Angie
Svengali tells the story of Dixie, a postman from South Wales, and a music fanatic. All his life he’s dreamed of discovering a great band and then one day, trawling through YouTube, he finds them… ‘The Premature Congratulations’. He hunts them down and offers them his management services. They are young, arrogant, sexy and utterly magnificent. Putting their demo on a cassette tape, Dixie heads out onto the streets of London…...
Run & Jump
Character: Vanetia
After a stroke leaves her husband disabled and fundamentally changed, a spirited Irish wife struggles to keep her family members together. All the while they are under the microscope of an American researcher documenting their recovery process....
Hancock & Joan
Character: Joan Le Mesurier
Drama which tells the story of comedian Tony Hancock's love affair with his friend's wife, and her fight to save the man and his career....
The Theory of Everything
Character: Elaine Mason
The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde....
Confessions of a Diary Secretary
Character: Tracey Temple
Funny film concerning John Prescott's affair with Tracey Temple...
Keeping Rosy
Character: Charlotte
A woman becomes enraged after being passed over for a promotion at her job....
Something Out of Nothing
Character:
A specially commissioned animation inspired by Barbara Hepworth's art and life....
Surfaces
Character: Alix
Short film for Refuge, the national charity for domestic abuse, drawing attention to the shocking rise in violence against women during the 2020 lockdown...
I Wish For You
Character: Grown Up Mia
A woman is moving house and as she is unpacking boxes she finds a long lost letter from her grandfather. As she reads it, his words evoke strong emotive memories and she is transported back into her childhood by her grandfathers words. As he shares his love and concern for the natural world around us. The journey back in time leaves Mia (the woman) visually and emotionally moved as she remembers and shares her grandfathers love and hope for the world around us. It is a story that transcends time...
Judy
Character: Judy
Set in Royton, Manchester, Judy is the uplifting story of a mother struggling to come to terms with her cancer diagnosis. The debut film of acclaimed theatre director Matthew Dunster, Judy stars Maxine Peake and is a Little Brother/ BFI production....
Lapushka!
Character: Scoot Piccolo
'The Butternut Squash Gang' always stumble upon a criminal rouse that is passed off by adults as overactive minds. From their clubhouse in the woods, they must come up with a far-fetched plot to overthrow the baddies and claim victory....
Strange Weather
Character: Jane
Two strangers witness a mysterious natural phenomenon that reawaken their senses and draws their fractured lives together....
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
Character: Helen Marshall
After 6 years of brutal murders, the West Yorkshire Police fear that they may have already interviewed The Ripper and let him back into the world to continue his reign of terror upon the citizens of Yorkshire. Assistant Chief Constable of the Manchester Police, Peter Hunter, is called in to oversee the West Yorkshire Police's Ripper investigation and see what they could have missed....
The Falling
Character: Eileen Lamont
England, 1969. The fascinating Abbie and the troubled Lydia are great friends. After an unexpected tragedy occurs in the strict girls' school they attend, a mysterious epidemic of fainting breaks out that threatens the mental sanity and beliefs of the tormented people involved, both teachers and students....
Hamlet
Character: Hamlet
From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade....
The Great Mountain Sheep Gather
Character: Self - Narrator
Every summer, the sheep on Scafell Pike are gathered down to the farm for shearing. On this epic journey, a shepherd reflects on life while caring for his flock in this rugged landscape....
Generation '66
Character: Narrator
Documentary exploring the key events of 1966, a period when British pop music, fashion and sport was making waves across the globe, but when the nation's upbeat mood was undercut by darker sensibilities....
Red Top
Character: Rebekah Brooks
Comic fantasy telling the story of Rebekah, an innocent and beguiling Northern girl who accidentally becomes Chief Executive of News International and gets caught up in a seventies Watergate-style scandal....
Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
Character: Self
The comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests....
Choked Up
Character: Fiona Lacey
A politician learns just how quickly things can go terribly wrong when a career-defining live TV interview goes off the rails due to a surprise coughing attack....
Private Peaceful
Character: Hazel Peaceful
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice....
Bike Squad
Character: WPC Kate McFay
Comedy-drama featuring a group of inept constables who are relegated to the embarrassing "Bike Squad", a new police scheme intended to serve as a more flexible response unit....
All or Nothing
Character: Party girl
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive....
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Character: Titania
At the tyrannical court of Athens, pitiless dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, a prisoner of war, while young Hermia is sentenced to death by her own father for loving the wrong man. Meanwhile, in the town below, an amateur theatre group rehearses. And beyond Athens, in the wild woods, dark forces are stirring......
Hamilton Mattress
Character: Lulu (voice)
Sludger the aardvark tries to make it big as a drummer in the big city....
Funny Cow
Character: Funny Cow
A comedian uses her troubled past as material for her stand-up routine, trying to rise up through the comedy circuit by playing Northern England's working men's clubs....
Art Matters
Character: Self
Join Melvyn Bragg for an insightful journey into why “Art Matters,” With a career spanning over 60 years, Bragg passionately advocates for the importance of the arts as he reflects on his early experiences and engages with influential figures from the artistic world....
Keeping Up with the Joneses
Character: Celia
MP's wife Celia discovers her husband's true colours when she is taken hostage by his criminal business associates....
Best Laid Plans
Character: Isabel
David Blair directs this powerful British Drama, loosely inspired by John Steinbeck's novel 'Of Mice and Men'. Set in Nottingham, the film revolves around the relationship between the thuggish Danny (Stephen Graham) and Joseph (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a giant of a man with a mental age of seven. When Danny finds himself in debt to a local crime boss, he feels he is left with no choice but to manipulate Joseph into participating in a series of underground cage fights from which Danny can pay h...
Frozen
Character: Ticket Attendant
It's two years since the mysterious disappearance of Kath Swarbrick's older sister Annie, but Kath remains haunted by a need to know what happened. When police investigations wind down, Kath continues the search herself. She gets nowhere until she steals some CCTV footage of her sister on her final day. Visiting the spot where Annie was filmed, Kath becomes convinced she has found a portal to another reality and from this portal Kath is trying to say something....
Fanny Lye Deliver'd
Character: Fanny Lye
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with the arrival of young couple Thomas and Rebecca who claim to have been robbed and need a place to stay. But are these strangers really who they say they are?...
Peterloo
Character: Nellie
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty....
Men Who Sleep in Cars
Character: Sarah
Three men in modern Manchester spend each night sleeping in their cars. How did they end up in this situation? How do they cope? Michael Symmons Roberts's verse drama explores the world of the invisible modern homeless - not asleep in a shop doorway, not asleep in a shop doorway, but no less desperate....
Wonders of the Moon
Character: Narrator (voice)
Documentary which uses the latest, most detailed imagery to reveal the monthly life cycle of the moon. From Wales to Wyoming, Hong Kong to Croydon, the programme finds out how the moon shapes life on Earth, as well as exploring its mysterious dark side and discovering how the moon's journey around Earth delivers one of nature's most awe-inspiring events - a total solar eclipse. And at the end of a remarkable year of lunar activity, we find out why so many supermoons have been lighting up the nig...
Cake
Character:
Two women sit in a barren dystopian wasteland discussing the best way to die....
DeafBlind
Character: Maggie
'Ever had that feeling you're being watched?' A Deaf Blind woman has a man living in her house. She doesn't know he's there. What does he want?...
Gwen
Character: Elen
A mysterious — and suspicious — run of ill fortune plagues a teenage girl and her mother and sister on their hillside farm in this folk story set in the dark hills of Wales during the industrial revolution....
The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca
Character: Herself
Maxine Peake's exploration of the true story of Lillian Bilocca, a largely forgotten but formidable figure in the fight for safer trawlers. The programme explores Lillian Bilocca's fight at the time through archive and dramatic reconstructions based on the play The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca, written by Maxine Peake....
The Priest
Character:
Johnny Marr has teamed up with the award-winning actor Maxine Peake to create a new project which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s instrumental soundscapes. ‘The Priest’ is based upon the characters that Joe Gallagher met on the streets in the first few days after becoming homeless in Edinburgh. Gallagher wrote a diary of his experiences for the Big Issue under the pseudonym James Campbell when he first became homeless in May 2015 and continued until he found a new home in March 2...
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
Character: Narrator
Narrated by Maxine Peake, this feature documentary explores the failures and deception that have caused a chronic shortage of social housing in Britain....
The Fear of Trilogy
Character:
Maxine Peake stars in a short film about three fears (birds, falling, sleepwalking) - filmed and edited in a single day on a mobile phone for Cinema Now, a digital conference held at BAFTA....
The Shuttleworths
Character: Helen Bach
Versatile singer/song-writer John Shuttleworth struggles to balance semi-professional obligations - a gig at a care home - with domestic, namely his 25th wedding anniversary....
Bunch of Kunst - A Film About Sleaford Mods
Character: Self (archive footage)
Documentary following British punk duo Sleaford Mods on their two year journey from Nottingham bedroom recording sessions to chart success...
Unseen
Character: Emma
A cleaner in a brand new apartment block begins to suspect one of the residents is a victim of domestic abuse....
Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels
Character: Friedrich Engels (voice)
Following the artist Phil Collins' search for a decommissioned statue of German philosopher Friedrich Engels in eastern Ukraine, and documenting its journey and arrival to a homecoming party in Manchester....