BORN : Lancashire
FAMILY : Her mother is a nurse, ‘I knew quite a bit about hospital life and she could give me a few ideas.’
TRAINED : Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Graduated in 1993.
PREVIOUS JOBS : She sang in a band after leaving school (she’s a mezzo soprano), and also had a bagel round.
SKILLS : Holds a proficiency certificate in stage fighting.
LIKE EDDIE? : ‘I’m not terribly competitive like Eddie. I’d just like to fulfill my potential.’
ON GETTING CASUALTY PART : ‘For once in my life a Lancashire accent helped me, they wanted a black woman with a regional accent and mine fitted. It was a tough year for Eddie but a brilliant one for me, I only graduated from RADA so this was my first proper acting job and it taught me so much about TV techniques.’
ON GORY SCENES : ‘I don’t like blood, on the very first episode, I had to pull back a sterile dressing and underneath was a huge gash along this woman’s arm and a great deal of blood. I took one look at went ‘Oh my goodness’. The director said calmly ‘No Joan that’s not your line.’
TELEVISION CREDITS : Whizziwig; London’s Burning; Keeping Mum; Peak Practice; Birds of a Feather; Casualty; Desmonds; Riff Raff Element; The Swap; Mersey Beat; Peak Practice; Jonathan Creek; The Bill; Where the Heart Is; Doctors; Magnolia; Consent; Empathy; Little Devil; Hunter; Hip Hip Hooray; Monday Monday
FILM CREDITS : The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz; Re-Inventing Eddie; Nice Guy
THEATRE CREDITS : Educating Rita; Golden Girls; Don Juan Comes Back From the War; The Party’s Over
BOOKS : Appears in ‘CASUALTY : The Inside Story (Revised & Updated) by Hilary Kingsley.
