Kathy Burke - Career

Career

Burke's first role was in the controversial 1983 film Scrubbers, directed by Swedish actress Mai Zetterling and featuring Pam St. Clement, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolyes, Honey Bane, Debby Bishop and Eva Mottley. The film was set in a young offenders' institute for girls and was seen as a female version of the film Scum.

Burke appeared in a non-speaking role in a 1985 public information film about heroin addiction.

Burke first became familiar to television audiences as a player of minor roles in sketches by better-known performers such as Harry Enfield, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Early TV work included regular appearances on the chat show "The Last Resort" hosted by Jonathan Ross on UK Channel 4 in the early 1980s, playing the characters 'Tina Bishop' and 'Perry the Pre-pubscent Schoolboy". Bishop was a continually pregnant "expert" offering advice on household chores, always with disastrous results. Along with French & Saunders, she has contributed to two Comic Relief charity singles. She first appeared as a member of Bananarama parody band Lananeeneenoonoo in 1989, and then as a member of Spice Girls' look-alike band the Sugar Lumps in 1997. In real life Burke is a big fan of Morrissey and appeared in the video for his 1989 single "Ouija Board, Ouija Board" and later in the 2002 Channel 4 documentary The Importance Of Being Morrissey.

She quickly became successful in her own right and although mainly associated with comedy, she has played several serious roles including that of Queen Mary I of England in Elizabeth.

Burke won the Best Actress award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for her role in the gritty drama Nil by Mouth which also earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination. Since then she has appeared as Perry in Kevin and Perry Go Large, and as Linda La Hughes in Gimme Gimme Gimme were she was nominated for 3 British Comedy Awards (winning one), 2 BAFTA TV Awards and a National Television Award for her performance. In 2000, she appeared in the cult film Love Honour and Obey with Ray Burdis.

In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Beginning in 2001, she refrained from acting and threw herself into theatre directing; something she considers to be one of her true passions. She said in an interview with Dawn French in Dawn French's Girls Who do Comedy that she no longer felt the same creative energy associated with acting that she used to (she described it as a "feeling in my belly") and that this was the reason she had stopped acting. However, she has done some voiceover work in the past few years, including adverts for Ski yoghurt (in the UK) as well as Flushed Away (2006). She also appeared in the 2007 Christmas Special of The Catherine Tate Show as Nan's daughter.

In early 1990 she wrote and directed her first play, Mr Thomas, at the Old Red Lion Theatre. Set in 1950s London it starred James Clyde, Anita Graham, Jamie Oliver, Ian Jentle, Oliver Smith and Ray Winstone. It was subsequently filmed and shown on Channel 4 the next year.

In 2007, Burke contracted Clostridium difficile while in hospital for an operation, resulting in her having to pass directing duties on Dying for It at the Almeida Theatre (which starred Charlie Condou and Sophie Stanton who she worked with on Gimme Gimme Gimme).

In 2009, Burke made her television directorial debut with the BBC Three sketch show series Horne & Corden, starring Mathew Horne and James Corden.

In 2010, Burke completed a short autobiographical film, "Better Than Christmas", for "Little Crackers", a collection of comic shorts. Burke plays a nun. On 19 January 2012, it was announced that Burke's short for "Little Crackers" would be turn into a four-part series, "Walking and Talking", written by Burke. Burke is also expected to appear as a nun in each of the episodes. The series aired in the summer of 2012 on Sky Atlantic.

In 2011, Burke played Connie Sachs in the film adaptation of the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. She was longlisted for a BAFTA nomination for her performance as Supporting Actress in 2012.