We are delighted that Anna will be joining us for the first Salon in Season Five. Find out more about her here…
I’ve been an actress for approximately 150 years performing everywhere from the National Theatre of Great Britain (I rarely almost never mention this) to a dripping wet carpark in Beijing. I’ve been a member of the Scary Little Girls sorority ever since I met Becca whilst workshopping the part of Irish Nationalist Anna Parnell for Ladies Cage.
We were in a very echoey room and I worked out that if I shouted loud enough no one could understand what I was saying and my accent would therefore pass muster. (They didn’t use me for the actual show. I did subsequently marry the director though so.. you know… swings and roundabouts…) I have enjoyed playing a wide range of non-Irish roles for SLG since, basking in their raucous, vibrant and terrifyingly intelligent company.
I specialise in theatre but have been known to grace the silver screen getting ripped apart in world-class movies such as Hellworld: Hellraiser 8 and The Scarcrow (sic). I’m mostly recognised for speaking Japanese at Simon Pegg in Run Fat Boy Run. Other guest spots where I speak languages I can’t speak include Polish menopausal aunt in comedy horror Two Heads Creek. I was cast in This Sceptred Isle about 6 months ago but Sir Ken Branagh’s subsequent deafening silence on the matter has led me to believe that my agent was lying just to cheer me up after lockdown.
In November I will be playing the wicked stepmother in Sutton Coldfield for which I will be required to play the saxophone and dance, a thought which induces a double fainting attack followed by instant amnesia. I suspect that by November both those skills will have magically lodged themselves in my body. In the meantime, I live with my family in a hobbit house in Oxford, wishing I were a bit more bohemian and radical but really spending a lot of time dodging the PTA by pretending to be delusional.
I am trying to persuade Becca to make a cabaret with me just so I can dress up as Vesta Tilley while she plays Marie Lloyd and we say things like “golly” and “by jove” with conviction.
