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You are the task. No pupil far and wide. Franz Kafka |
Tamsin Greig (born 23 February 1967) is an English actress principally known for two Channel 4 television comedy parts: Fran Katzenjammer in Black Books and Dr. Caroline Todd in Green Wing. Other notable roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy drama Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, Beverly Lincoln in transatlantic sitcom Episodes and Jackie in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner.
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Greig has had a long-running part as Debbie Aldridge in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers since 1991. Due to her other work, she is not in the show all the time and her character Debbie spends most of her time living in Hungary.
Greig is also known for her comedy roles. She guest-starred in five episodes of the second series in the radio version of Absolute Power, playing Gayle Shand, a rival to Prentiss McCabe and Charles Prentiss's former lover. Her comedy roles do pose problems for Greig, who has admitted that she has problems with corpsing.
Greig appeared in a number of supporting parts, notably as Lamia in Neverwhere (1996) and The Mother in an episode of People Like Us (2000). Her first major role was Fran Katzenjammer in the sitcom Black Books in 2000, a neurotic who owned "Nifty Gifty", a sort of new-age gift shop. In 2004, Greig had a small part in the movie Shaun of the Dead with Dylan Moran and Simon Pegg. In 2005, she appeared as a nurse in an episode of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who entitled "The Long Game".
In 2004, she played constantly embarrassed surgical registrar Dr. Caroline Todd, the lead character in the Channel 4 comedy drama series Green Wing. Her performance won her "Best Comedy Performance" in the 2005 Royal Television Society Awards. She also appeared as Caroline in an appearance at The Secret Policeman's Ball.
She starred in the BBC comedy drama series Love Soup (2005), as Alice Chenery, a lovelorn woman working on a department store perfume counter, in a role specifically written for her by David Renwick, whom she met in 2003 when she appeared in an episode of Jonathan Creek.
Greig appeared in the role of Edith Frank in the BBC's January 2009 production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Also in 2009, she appeared as Miss Bates in the BBC serial Jane Austen's Emma. In 2010, she played Sacharissa Cripslock in the two part mini-series Terry Pratchett's Going Postal.
In 2011, she starred in the BBC comedy Episodes made by American company Showtime, alongside Matt LeBlanc and Stephen Mangan. She also stars in the Channel 4 sitcom, Friday Night Dinner.
During 2006 and early 2007, Greig played Beatrice in a much acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing for which she won a Laurence Olivier Award, and Constance in King John, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works season. Whilst the win itself was a surprise, her acceptance speech was received very well as being highly entertaining, claiming that she was so excited that she had wet her dress. To make it worse, the dress was hired. The speech was apparently completely improvised. Backstage, when told not to tell her mother about her wetting her dress, she told the host that her mum was dead before dedicating her award to her 'dead mum'. She also won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for "Best Shakespearean Performance" in Much Ado About Nothing, becoming the first woman to win the award, and was nominated for "The FRANCO'S Best Actress in a Play" in the Whatsonstage Theatregoers' Choice Awards.
At the Gielgud Theatre in March 2008, she co-starred with Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott in the UK premiere of Yasmina Reza's The God of Carnage (Le Dieu du carnage) translated by Christopher Hampton and directed by Matthew Warchus. The play won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2009. In 2008, she co-starred in the surreal sci-fi film Captain Eager and the Mark of Voth.
In November 2008, she made her National Theatre debut in Gethsemane, a new play by David Hare which toured the UK. Greig was starring in The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane at the Garrick Theatre in London, which did run a limited season until 10 April 2010. She starred alongside Rupert Friend, Gemma Arterton and Harry Lloyd, and the play was directed by Jamie Lloyd. She won the 2011 WhatsOnStage Theatregoers Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a play for her portrayal. Her performance as Diane in The Little Dog Laughed garnered her a second Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress. In October 2011 she was Hilary, the central character, in Jumpy at the Royal Court, London.
Greig starred with Richard E. Grant in the film Cuckoo, and with Roger Allam and Gemma Arterton in Tamara Drewe. She also made a short cameo appearance in the 2004 comedy Shaun of the Dead.
Greig grew up in Kent. She moved to Kilburn when she was three with her two sisters. She went to Malorees Junior School, followed by Camden School for Girls where she passed A-Levels in English, French and Mathematics, and graduated with a first class honours degree in Drama and Theatre Arts from the University of Birmingham. After that, she worked as a temp at the Family Planning Association until 1996; she also spent some time at a secretarial college. She never planned to move back to London, but she did in 1996, because her father was dying and she wanted to comfort him. She now lives in a flat in Kensal Green. She converted to Christianity at this time, having been raised as an atheist.
She is married to actor Richard Leaf, whom she met on the set of Neil Gaiman's 1996 miniseries Neverwhere, and has three children, Nathanael Zephaniah, Jakob Zebedee and Roxie Joy. They are sometimes comically referred to as "Leaflets". Greig has previously admitted that she is somewhat embarrassed by the marriage because, "It suddenly hit me one day: after we're married I'll be called Mrs T Leaf!" She has stated that she is often mistaken for Sharleen Spiteri, the lead singer of the band Texas, for the impressionist Ronni Ancona, for comedian Sue Perkins and is even sometimes mistaken for a man.
One review by Charlie Spencer in The Telegraph described her (in her role as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing) as "not exactly beautiful, a little like Edwina Currie". She is a supporter of the National Health Service, giving her backing to a rally organised by pro-NHS protest group NHS Together. She also supports more practical teaching of Shakespeare in British schools, supporting the RSC's "Stand Up For Shakespeare" manifesto.
Tamsin Greig
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