Felicity McCall is an Irish journalist, writer and broadcaster who began her career with two decades working for the BBC in Northern Ireland. She has over twenty published works include novels, non-fiction, plays, and anthologies.
McCall worked for the BBC for twenty years and in around 2000 she settled down to being a full-time writer. [1]
In 2006 she published a biography of Agnes Jones, the Irish nursing pioneer who was inspired by Florence Nightingale and reformed the Liverpool workhouses. [2]
Her plays have been professionally produced in the UK, Ireland, the USA, and Australasia; her awards include the UK National Lottery Award for Heritage 2011 for We Were Brothers; two Epic Ireland awards in 2013 for Every Bottle has a Story to Tell; two Meyer Whitworth nominations, for No Goodbyes (2008) and We Were Brothers (2010); and the Tyrone Guthrie Scriptwriting Award (2006–07). Much of her work is based on historical fact or social activism. Her screenplay credits include Agnes (Ambient Light/GSCA 2006), based on the life of the Irish nursing pioneer Agnes Jones, and Jam (Brassneck Productions).[ citation needed ]
McCall is also a director and founding member of theatre groups Handful Productions and Postscript, and co-founded the Derry Writers' Group. She served on the Irish Executive of the National Union of Journalists.[ citation needed ]
Barbara Ruth Dickson is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include "I Know Him So Well", "Answer Me" and "January February". Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a number of hit singles, including four which reached the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart. The Scotsman newspaper has described her as Scotland's best-selling female singer in terms of the numbers of hit chart singles and albums she has achieved in the UK since 1976.
Helen Fielding is a British journalist, novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones. Fielding’s first novel was set in a refugee camp in East Africa and she started writing Bridget Jones in an anonymous column in London’s Independent newspaper. This turned into an unexpected hit, leading to four Bridget Jones novels and three movies, with a fourth movie announced in April 2024 for release in 2025.
Catherine ElizabethMoran is an English journalist, broadcaster, and author at The Times, where she writes two columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch".
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.
Shirley Henderson is a Scottish actress. Her accolades include two Scottish BAFTAs, a VFCC Award and an Olivier Award, as well as BAFTA, BIFA, London Critics' Circle, Chlotrudis, Gotham, and Canadian Screen Award nominations.
Anna Margaret Ross, known by her pen-name Amanda McKittrick Ros, was an Irish writer. She published her first novel Irene Iddesleigh at her own expense in 1897, but it was reprinted by Nonesuch Press in 1926 and sold out immediately. She wrote poetry and a number of novels. She has been described as a "writer with an immense power of words but uncertain use of them."
Ruth Alexandra Elisabeth Jones is a Welsh actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She co-wrote and co-starred in the award-winning BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey. She later co-wrote and starred in the Sky One comedy-drama Stella (2012–2017), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance and won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter.
Felicity Rose Hadley Jones is a British actress, and started her professional acting career as a child, appearing in The Treasure Seekers (1996) at age 12. She went on to play Ethel Hallow for one series of the television series The Worst Witch and its sequel Weirdsister College. On radio, she has played the role of Emma Grundy in the BBC's The Archers. In 2008, she appeared in the Donmar Warehouse production of The Chalk Garden.
Alice Sophia Eve is a British actress. The daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan, she began her career with supporting roles in the films Hawking and Stage Beauty. Her other credits include Starter for 10 (2006), She's Out of My League (2010), Men in Black 3 (2012), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Before We Go (2014), Please Stand By (2017), Replicas (2018), and Bombshell (2019). On television, she has had recurring roles on HBO's Entourage (2011), Marvel's Iron Fist (2018), and Amazon Prime's The Power (2023).
Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand actress, playwright and novelist based in the UK. In the 1980s Ewing played the character Agnes Fairchild in British comedy series Brass. Ewing's novel The Petticoat Men was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award in 2015.
Michelle Suzanne Dockery is an English actress. She is best known for starring as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV television period drama series Downton Abbey (2010–2015), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised her role in the films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022).
Agnes Elizabeth Jones of Fahan, County Donegal, Ireland became the first trained Nursing Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. She gave all her time and energy to her patients and died at the age of 35 from typhus fever. Florence Nightingale said of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, ‘She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England.’
Katy Victoria J Wix is a Welsh actress, writer, author and artist. Her television roles include Carole in Stath Lets Flats, Mary in Ghosts, Barbara in Ted Lasso, and Jules in Big Boys. She has also appeared as a series contestant on Taskmaster and as a recurring character in the science fiction mini-series Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2009. She has written two series of her own: a sitcom for BBC Radio 4, Bird Island and a sketch show for Channel 4, Anna & Katy. In 2017, her painting was chosen for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. She has written two books of monologues and in 2021 she published her first memoir, Delicacy.
Monica Margaret Dolan is an English actress. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult (2011).
Amy McAllister is an Irish actress, most notable for her role as Mary in the BBC drama Call the Midwife. She appeared in Breeders alongside Martin Freeman for Sky One and in A Discovery of Witches which also stars Matthew Goode and Alex Kingston. Other credits include the BAFTA winning BBC/Merman comedy-drama There She Goes with Jessica Hynes and David Tennant, Victorian detective drama Miss Scarlet and the Duke for UKTV and PBS, Witless for BBC Three and the Stephen Frears film Philomena, which stars Steve Coogan and Judi Dench.
Northanger Abbey is a 2007 British television film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1817 novel of the same name. It was directed by British television director Jon Jones and the screenplay was written by Andrew Davies. Felicity Jones stars as the protagonist Catherine Morland and JJ Feild plays her love interest Henry Tilney.
Stephanie Rose McGovern is an English journalist and television presenter. She hosted Steph's Packed Lunch on Channel 4 from 2020 to 2023. She worked for the BBC as the main business presenter for BBC Breakfast, often co-hosting the entire programme.
Julie McNamara is a theatre director, playwright, producer, actor and poet. She is artistic director of touring theatre company Vital Xposure. Patron of disability arts organisation DaDaFest and a political activist for human rights and gender politics.
Shevawn Lynam was an Irish novelist and journalist. She was the Spanish-language specialist with the BBC and Ministry of Information during World War II.
Fiona Maddocks is a British music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "one of the UK's leading writers and commentators on classical music", Maddocks has been chief music critic of The Observer since 2010. She held a central role in founding three media companies: BBC Music Magazine, Channel 4 and The Independent.