Lyn Gardner is a British theatre critic, children's writer and journalist who contributes reviews and articles to The Stage, Stagedoor and has written for The Guardian .
A graduate in drama and English from the University of Kent, Gardner was a founding member of the City Limits magazine, a cooperative for which she edited the theatre section. [1] Later, she was a contributor to The Independent .
Gardner joined The Guardian as theatre critic in 1995, and remained on the paper for twenty-three years, taking a particular interest in fringe and more alternative theatre, while Michael Billington covered the most mainstream productions. Latterly she was writing 130 reviews and 28,000 words of features annually, as well as 150 posts a year for an online blog for the paper, begun in 2008. The paper discontinued her blog in 2017 citing cost pressures, [2] and the following year let her go. [3] [4]
Since June 2017 Gardner had been an Associate Editor of The Stage newspaper, where she continues to write her theatre blog. [5] Gardner was also taken on to teach an MA in Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins. [6]
Gardner is a writer of children's novels, the earliest being Into the Woods (2006) and Out of the Woods (2010), both illustrated by Mini Grey and published by David Fickling Books. ISFDB catalogues it as the "Storm Eden" series.
She has written six further children's novels for Nosy Crow, known as the "Stage School Series", base around a young girl named Olivia attending Stage School. They have been well received, [7] [8] and a final seventh book was published in July 2013. The first in the series was Olivia's First Term.
Kay Mellor was an English actress, scriptwriter, producer and director. She was known for creating television shows such as ITV drama Fat Friends (2000–05), as well as co-creating CITV's children's drama Children's Ward (1989–2000).
Sarah Caroline Sinclair, known professionally as Olivia Colman, is a British actress. Known for her comedic and dramatic roles in film and television, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Emmy Awards, three British Academy Television Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.
Olivia Haigh Williams is a British actress who has appeared in British and American films and television. Williams studied drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School for two years followed by three years at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her first significant screen role was as Jane Fairfax in the British television film Emma (1996), based on Jane Austen's novel.
Maxine Peake is an English actress and narrator. She is known for her roles as Twinkle in the BBC One sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), Veronica Ball in the hit Channel 4 comedy drama Shameless (2004–2007), Martha Costello in the BBC One legal drama Silk (2011–2014), and Grace Middleton in the BBC One drama series The Village (2013–2014). In 2017, she starred in the Black Mirror episode "Metalhead". She has also played the title role in Hamlet, as well as the notorious serial killer Myra Hindley in the critically acclaimed ITV dramatization of the Moors murders, See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006).
Rebecca Lenkiewicz is a British playwright and screenwriter. She is best known as the author of Her Naked Skin (2008), which was the first original play written by a living female playwright to be performed on the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre.
Emma Cunniffe is an English film, stage and television actress.
Quentin Richard Stephen Letts is an English journalist and theatre critic. He has written for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and The Oldie. On 26 February 2019, it was announced that Letts would return to The Times.
Sally Cecilia Hawkins is an English actress who began her career on stage and then moved into film. She has received several awards including a Golden Globe Award and the Berlin International Film Festival's Silver Bear for Best Actress, with nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Academy Awards, and two British Academy Film Awards.
Chris Bartlett is a Cheshire-based playwright and arts journalist.
William Benedict Herbert Nightingale is a British journalist, formerly a regular theatre critic for The Times newspaper. He was educated at Charterhouse and Magdalene College, Cambridge. His first published theatre review was for the Tunbridge Wells Advertiser in 1957, a production of Look Back in Anger by a local amateur group.
David Greig is a Scottish playwright and theatre director. His work has been performed at many of the major theatres in Britain, including the Traverse Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and been produced around the world.
Andrew Havill is an English actor. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the late 1980s, Havill has appeared in more than 40 films and 50 plays. After training in Oxford and London, he began his career in repertory theatre in 1989 and made his screen debut in 1993. Havill has since become a character actor of British costume dramas, with recent work including several credits in Bollywood cinema.
Tanika Gupta is a British playwright. Apart from her work for the theatre, she has also written scripts for television, film and radio plays.
Ruth Sheen is an English actress. From the late 1980s, she has appeared in British television shows, films and plays. A participant in the films of Mike Leigh, she won the European Film Award for Best Actress for her performance as Shirley in Leigh's High Hopes (1988).
Jessica Ransom is a British actress and writer, best known for her role as medical receptionist Morwenna Newcross in the ITV drama Doc Martin (2011–2022), as well as being a writer on The Amazing World of Gumball. She won a Children's BAFTA Award in 2015.
Pippa Nixon is an English actress. She trained at Manchester School of Theatre.
Denise Deegan is an English novelist and playwright. She is best known for her play, Daisy Pulls It Off.
Kate O'Flynn is a British actress. She is known for her performance in National Theatre's production of Port for which she received a Critics' Circle Theatre Award in 2013, as well as starring roles in plays A Taste of Honey in 2014, and The Glass Menagerie for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2017.
Golda Rosheuvel is a Guyanese-British actress and singer. She is known for her theatre work and a number of on-screen roles, most prominently for the portrayal of Queen Charlotte in Netflix's Bridgerton.
Emily Burnett is a Welsh actress. From 2017 to 2019, she portrayed the role of Charlie Morris in the CBBC series The Dumping Ground, a role for which she won the 2019 British Academy Children's Award for Performer. In 2020, she portrayed the role of Jas Salford in fellow CBBC series So Awkward. In 2021, Burnett was cast in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks as Olivia Bradshaw.
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