Martina Laird

Last updated

Martina Laird
Born1971 (age 5253)
NationalityTrinidadian
Education University of Kent at Canterbury;
Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation(s)Actress, director, acting teacher
Years active1993–present
Website www.martinalaird.com

Martina Laird (born 1971) is a Trinidadian British actress of stage, film and television.

Contents

Early life and education

Martina Laird was born in 1971 [1] in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Her interest in drama began early, when she was seven years old, and from the age of 13 she studied with such local luminaries as Beryl McBurnie, and regularly attended performances at the Little Carib Theatre. [2]

At the age of 17, Laird went to the United Kingdom, having won a national scholarship to study French at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and she did drama as part of her degree course. [3] Having told her parents of her acting ambitions at the age of 20, on the advice of Derek Walcott, who was a family friend, Laird went on to attend the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. [4]

Career

After beginning her acting career on the stage, she landed a role in the BBC TV drama series Casualty , most memorably playing the character Comfort for several years. [5] [6] She also featured in other popular television series, including Holby City and EastEnders .

Among her notable stage credits are as Sophia in Errol John's Moon on a Rainbow Shawl , directed by Michael Buffong, in a 2012 production at the Royal National Theatre, [7] [8] and Marcus Gardley's The House that Will Not Stand at the Tricycle Theatre (2014). [9] [10] [11]

She performed in seven Shakespeare plays over two years in 2016 and 2017: The Taming of the Shrew , Romeo and Juliet , Julius Caesar , The Tempest , Henry IV , Coriolanus , and All's Well That Ends Well . [12]

In 2019, Laird appeared in the August Wilson play King Hedley II , alongside Lenny Henry, at Stratford East. [13]

In October 2023, she featured in a revival of Mustapha Matura's play Meetings at the Orange Tree Theatre. [14] [15]

Awards

Laird has won a Screen Nation Award and a Michael Elliot Trust Award. [16]

Filmography

YearTitleRoleNotes
1991 EastEnders Court ClerkEpisode: 14th Jan 1993 Trial of Nick Cotton
1993 Harry FriendSeries 1, Episode 5
1993–1999 The Bill Sandra Newton / Marlene Franklin / Marcia Walsh3 episodes
1995 The Governor Zania3 episodes
One for the RoadRuthEpisode: "Prague"
1995–2006, 2016 Casualty Comfort Jones / Comfort Newton / Darleen Devern207 episodes
1996 The Knock Nadine CharlesSeries 2, Episode 2
Thief Takers RuthEpisode: "Wasteland"
Dangerfield WPCEpisode: "Inside Out"
1998 Peak Practice Dr. Toray
Jonathan Creek BridgetEpisode: "Danse Macabre"
1999 Wing and a Prayer Dee Dee Bastiani3 episodes
1999–2000 A Touch of Frost Miriam MadikaneEpisodes: "Line of Fire (Parts 1&2)"
1999–2005 Holby City Comfort Newton / Darleen Devern3 episodes
2000, 2011 My Family Darci / Doctor Kelly
2003 Children in Need ComfortSeries 1, Episode 4
2005 Casualty@Holby City Comfort Newton5 episodes
2007 Deadbeat Detective Clayderman
2009 Free Agents Series 1, Episode 6
Monday Monday
2010 Shameless Michelle2 episodes
Missing Pamela RutterSeries 2, Episode 3
Doctors Kathy NichollsEpisode: "Like Mothers, Like Daughters"
Forget Me Not Doctor
2011 Coronation Street Colette Hankinson
BlitzForensic Officer
London's BurningRachelTelevision film
2013FedsCoach McKenzie
2015 The Dumping Ground Mrs Underwood
2016JerichoEpiphany8 episodes
EastEnders DC Angie Rice8 episodes
2017PadlockNatashaShort film
2017–2018The Donmar Warehouse's All-Female Shakespeare TrilogyAlonso / Worcester / Gadshill / Cassius
2019 Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators Claudia Farrel
Great PerformancesCassius
The Bay (TV series) Bernie ChambersTV series
2020 Summerland Older Vera
2021 Boxing Day Janet
Still We ThriveShort film
2023 Unforgotten Ebele FaladeSeries 5, episode 1
The Little Mermaid Lashana
2023 Dreamland DianeTV series

Theatre

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Shakespeare Company</span> British theatre company

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theatre Royal Stratford East</span> Theatre in London, England

The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a 460 seat Victorian producing theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company, famously associated with director Joan Littlewood, whose statue is outside the theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiln Theatre</span> Theatre in Kilburn, London, England

The Kiln Theatre is a theatre located in Kilburn, in the London Borough of Brent, England. Since 1980, the theatre has presented a wide range of plays reflecting the cultural diversity of the area, as well as new writing, political work and verbatim reconstructions of public inquiries.

Jeffery Kissoon is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner. He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mustapha Matura</span> Trinidad and Tobago playwright (1939–2019)

Mustapha Matura was a Trinidadian playwright living in London. Characterised by critic Michael Billington as "a pioneering black playwright who opened the doors for his successors", Matura was the first British-based dramatist of colour to have a play in London's West End, with Play Mas in 1974. He was described by the New Statesman as "the most perceptive and humane of Black dramatists writing in Britain."

Playboy of the West Indies (1984) is a play by Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura, a Caribbean version of John Millington Synge's 1907 The Playboy of the Western World.

Charlotte Cornwell was an English actress, singer, and a teacher of acting on the faculty at the University of Southern California (2003-2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanne Campbell</span> British actress (1964–2002)

Joanne Elizabeth Campbell was a British actress and drama therapist best known for playing Liz in the 1980s sitcom Me and My Girl and Josephine Baker on stage in This Is My Dream.

Lolita Chakrabarti is a British actress and writer.

<i>Ill Be The Devil</i> 2008 British play by Leo Butler

I'll Be The Devil is a play by Leo Butler commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and written in response to The Tempest by William Shakespeare. It was staged for the first time at the Tricycle Theatre in 2008, directed by Ramin Gray. It featured Derbhle Crotty, Tom Burke, John McInerny, and Gerard Murphy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Errol John</span> Trinidad and Tobago actor and playwright (1924–1988)

Errol John was a Trinidad and Tobago actor and playwright who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1951.

Yemi Ajibade, usually credited as Yemi Goodman Ajibade or Ade-Yemi Ajibade, was a Nigerian playwright, actor and director who, after settling in England in the 1950s, made significant contributions to the British theatre and the canon of Black drama. As an actor he is well-known for Dirty Pretty Things (2002), The Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and Danger Man (1964). In a career that spanned half a century, he directed and wrote several successful plays, as well as acting in a wide range of drama for television, stage, radio and film.

Pippa Nixon is an English actress. She trained at Manchester School of Theatre.

Claire Benedict is a British actress known for her work in classical productions on the British stage, but best known for portraying the principal character Mma Ramotswe in the continuing radio adaptations of The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. She won a Time Out Award for Best Performance for her portrayal of Sophia Adams in Errol John's Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, directed by Maya Angelou. She lives in Todmorden in the Pennines.

Marcus Gardley is an American poet, playwright and screenwriter from West Oakland, California. He is an ensemble member playwright at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago and an assistant professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Brown University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Singuineau</span> Trinidadian actor (1913–1992)

Francis Ethelbert Dominic Singuineau was a Trinidadian actor of stage and screen who worked in the United Kingdom, where he moved from Trinidad and Tobago in the 1940s.

Burt Caesar is a British actor, broadcaster and director for stage and television, who was born in St Kitts and migrated to England with his family as a child. His career has encompassed acting in Bond films, stage performances including in Shakespearian roles, and many plays for BBC Radio 4. Caesar regularly works as a director and is an artistic advisor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He is also a commentator on theatre and literature.

Michael Buffong is an English theatre director and the Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre Company. His work is characterised by reworking stage classics delivered to high degree of detail. Buffong has been described as "one of the most influential directors of classic plays over the last two decades", in addition to being named one of Creative Review's 50 Creative Leaders. In Spring 2019, Buffong was one of the judges of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Nitrobeat is a British theatre company. Founded in 1979 as the Black Theatre Co-operative by the playwright Mustapha Matura and the director Charlie Hanson, it was renamed Nitro in 1999. "Black Theatre Co-operative have been producing black theatre for longer than any other black company in Europe, and their existence has been significant to the careers of many of Britain's renowned black actors, actresses and playwrights."

Philip David Hedley, CBE was a British theatre director.

References

  1. Shimmon, Katie (30 September 2003). "College Days". The Guardian .
  2. Gordon, Zahra (10 January 2013). "Artist with a duty to truth". Trinidad and Tobago Guardian . Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. Myskow, Nina (2014). "The real real me: Martina Laird reveals all to Nina Myskow; I used to binge on food. My mum put a lock on the fridge but I picked it". The Free Library . Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  4. Fraser, Mark (15 April 2013). "Actress Living Legacy". Trinidad Express .
  5. Scott, Catherine (5 February 2014). "Following a dream to stage and TV". Yorkshire Post . Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  6. "Interviews: Martina Laird". Casualty. BBC. December 2004. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  7. Hitchings, Henry (15 March 2012). "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, National, SE1 - review". Evening Standard . Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  8. Kellaway, Kate (18 March 2012). "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl; Can We Talk about This?; Shivered – review". The Observer .
  9. Billington, Michael (20 October 2012). "The House That Will Not Stand review – unlike any other play in London". The Guardian.
  10. Hitchings, Henry (20 October 2014). "The House That Will Not Stand, Tricycle - theatre review | The whole cast dazzles in Marcus Gardley's play which depicts rivalry, jealousy and racial prejudice in 1830s New Orleans". Evening Standard .
  11. Barnett, Laura (22 October 2014). "The House that Will Not Stand, Tricycle Theatre, review: 'a drama cum ghost story'". The Telegraph .
  12. Minamore, Bridget (8 January 2018). "Martina Laird: 'Women are used to compromising, but the cost is becoming too great'" . The Stage. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  13. "On Stage Interview: Martina Laird in King Hedley II Stratford East". Alt A Review. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  14. Akbar, Arifa (19 October 2023). "Meetings review – cooking with postcolonialism in Mustapha Matura's sparky drama". The Guardian.
  15. Mitchell, Tamika (31 October 2023). "Martina Laird Talks … 'Meetings' @ The Orange Tree Theatre". The British Black List. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  16. "A Small Place: In Conversation with Martina Laird". Gate Theatre . Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  17. "The White Devil". Theatricalia. April–June 1996. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  18. Billington, Michael (21 June 2022). "The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder". The Guardian.
  19. "Othello (2007)". BBA Shakespeare. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  20. "The House that Will Not Stand". Kiln Theatre. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  21. Wood, Alex (28 November 2017). "Cast announced for All's Well That Ends Well at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse". Whats On Stage . Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  22. "Shebeen". Theatre Royal Stratford East. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  23. "King Hedley II". Stratford East. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  24. "15 Heroines – Jermyn Street Theatre". London Theatre 1. 9 November 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  25. "MEETINGS By Mustapha Matura, directed by Kalungi Ssebandeke". Orange Tree Theare. 11 November 2023.