Gwyneth Powell - Career

Career

Powell originally trained as a teacher at Goldsmiths, University of London, but instead chose to act in repertory theatre. Her first major television role was in the 1971 LWT dystopian drama series, "The Guardians". She was a regular, if minor, player in many television dramas until being cast in Grange Hill, in which she played the "firm but fair" headmistress Bridget ("The Midget") McClusky for eleven years. Of her role, she said in 2008,

"At first Mrs McClusky was written as a 'twin set and pearls' role but I was quite young at the time and didn't want to play it like that. We started with the clothes and she was quite fashion conscious and chic. I was told by lots of people she was a great fillip to young women teachers who started applying for headships. The show had repercussions in all kinds of ways and the character did too. My period did coincide with the Thatcher years. I think Mrs McClusky became memorable because we had a prime minister like that.

Eventually, however, Powell wanted to pursue other interests and gave the Grange Hill producers and writers a year to write McClusky out of the series. She bought the rights to E. M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady and adapted it as a self-financed one-woman show in Edinburgh, also touring the production.

Since then, Powell has appeared in other television programmes such as Heartbeat, A Touch of Frost and Father Brown, and in 2008, Echo Beach.

In 2009, using archive footage, coupled with some newly-recorded lines, Powell reprised her Grange Hill role as Mrs. McClusky for a cameo appearance in an episode of Ashes to Ashes, set in 1982. She also appeared in Arsenic and Old Lace at the Salisbury Playhouse.

In 2010, Powell starred as Nana in the Gemma Factor. Most recently, Powell became a support character in the teen program, House of Anubis, playing the role of Nina Martin's gran who ends up in hospital but is later released. Powell starred in seven episodes.