Kathy Burke

Everything you could reasonably want to know about the actress and director

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What’s this site about?

Everything you could reasonably want to know about the actor and director Kathy Burke.

And why does it exist?

Because Kathy Burke is the best British character actress of her generation, a comic marvel, and a down-to-earth hero to millions.

She has won worldwide acclaim in both comedy and serious drama roles. She has range – in both life and work.

As an actress, she stunned as a battered wife in Nil by Mouth, appalled as a crass tart in her own sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme, and amazed as a horny (male) teenager in Harry Enfield’s comedy show. Her cameos often steal the show.

As a director, Kathy has produced numerous plays to critical acclaim. And as a human being she has inspired, encouraged and cheered millions of ordinary citizens. Who else would Stephen Fry put in “Room Lovely” where everything about the world is good and life-enhancing?

See more on her, from recent news to a rundown of her career in films, television and theatre to date, interviews and articles about her and a small piece about Kathy and this website.

  • Films,  Kevin & Perry Go Large

    Kevin & Perry Go Large

    April 21, 2000 /

    Kevin is a virgin and will do anything to lose his virginity while his friends help him every step of the way. Features a dance music sound track… Year released 2000 Director Ed Bye Character played Perry

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    Love, Honour and Obey

    February 9, 2001

    The Martins

    September 14, 2001

    Anita and Me

    November 22, 2002
  • Articles,  Media

    Carlton preview of Kevin & Perry Go Large

    April 1, 2000 /

    Carlton Preview Preview: Welcome to Preview Kathy, can you tell us about the film? Kathy Burke: It’s basically about Kevin and Perry wanting to go to Ibiza, where the DJs are and where everyone “gives it large”. They want to be DJs so they think Ibiza is the place for them. It’s also got lots of girls? Lots of girls for them to ogle at! Is it difficult making a film length version as opposed to the series? Well the only thing I was concerned about was, would it work? It’s okay doing a five-ten minute sketch, would it last and work over an hour. I was just worried that…

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    60-second interview: Kathy Burke

    June 2, 2005

    The gay, the sad and the ugly

    January 4, 1999

    ‘I find brains sexy. What I’d really like is a plumber who can read’

    January 13, 2000
  • Articles,  Media

    Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke bring everyone’s favourite angst-ridden teenagers to the big screen

    September 9, 1999 /

    Heat Harry Enfield has been fitted with an electronic penis for his role as Kevin the teenager in Kevin And Perry – The Movie, currently shooting in London and Ibiza. Enfield has described the film variously as an “English Wayne’s World” or “A rites-of-passage story, in an international setting.” It sees Enfield and co-star Kathy Burke as the alienated, virginal teenage 16-year-olds flying to the Balearic dance capital to get laid and become “top mixmaster DJs”. Rhys Ifans. Spike from Notting Hill, plays the pair’s DJ hero, the rabidly egotistical Eyeball Paul. A key prop in the movie is the electronic device which simulates the erections that constantly pop up…

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    Carlton preview of Kevin & Perry Go Large

    April 1, 2000

    60-second interview: Kathy Burke

    July 9, 2002

    Q&A: Kathy Burke

    April 15, 2012
  • Articles,  Media

    Burke’s peerage

    July 13, 1999 /

    The Times The perfect connections: Gary Oldman, Harry Enfield, Meryl Streep. The perfect credentials: best actress gong, Time Out award, adoring public. Yet Kathy Burke is a lady unafraid to act unladylike. Two weeks ago, Kathy Burke was shopping in Waitrose on London’s Holloway Road. As she nudged her trolley along the aisles of fresh fruit, pet food and microwave dinners, she was stopped by a series of strangers. Some told the 34-year-old actress how much they laughed at her sex starved, wig-wearing harridan in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, the sitcom which has just finished its successful run on BBC2; others, including one slightly stiff middle-aged man, congratulated Burke on her recent portrayal of…

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    ‘I find brains sexy. What I’d really like is a plumber who can read’

    January 13, 2000

    Beautiful things: Kathy Burke and Jonathan Harvey

    March 18, 2001

    Meet the romantic lead in the new Merchant-Ivory film. (Just kidding)

    January 5, 1997
  • Articles,  Media

    The gay, the sad and the ugly

    January 4, 1999 /

    Kathy Burke says she knows her place when it comes to casting. And it’s not among the beautiful people. The Independent If you thought that Waynetta was a slob, Linda, the character Kathy Burke plays in a new BBC2 sitcom, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, is even more gross than the shell-suited, chain-smoking wife of Wayne she inhabits for Harry Enfield and Chums. Life for Linda and her gay flatmate Tom (James Dreyfus from The Thin Blue Line) is one long sex, drugs and rock’n’roll perma-bender. Done up in a ginger fright-wig and white-rimmed clown glasses, Linda gets so out of it her only way of knowing whether she ended the blinder…

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    My acting days are over

    October 19, 2004

    Kathy Burke in Walking and Talking on Sky Atlantic

    June 23, 2012

    Beautiful things: Kathy Burke and Jonathan Harvey

    March 18, 2001
  • Articles,  Media

    Bold as brass, that’s our Kathy

    December 4, 1998 /

    The Evening Standard ‘I think if I was a bloke I’d be quite f***ed up because I’ve got a lot of male in me. It’s because I’m a bird that I’m not. Which is just as well, really.’ Kathy Burke lights another ciggie and looks across Old Compton Street to the door of a prominent sex shop. She’s people watching – one of her favourite pastimes – from her usual table in a Soho café. ‘We sometimes catch the eye of some bloke coming out. They always look embarrassed.’ Burke has been described as a ‘national treasure’. And ‘the best British character actress of her generation’. And ‘Rita the Rottweiler’.…

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    Kathy Burke and her quare fellow

    January 30, 2004

    Marey, who cleans airports and sings with a band

    February 1, 1999

    Carlton preview of Kevin & Perry Go Large

    April 1, 2000
  • Articles,  Media

    Meet the romantic lead in the new Merchant-Ivory film. (Just kidding)

    January 5, 1997 /

    The Observer Common sense and Equity unemployment statistics prove acting is a madly competitive business. Yet the way actors tell it, this same profession breeds nothing but solidarity, tolerance and mutual admiration among its members. Only occasionally does someone break rank. In a letter to the London magazine Time Out last October, replying to comments made in an interview by Helena Bonham Carter, the actress Kathy Burke wrote: ‘As a lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes, I would like to say to Helena Bonham Carter (wholly pledged member of the very pretty upper-middle classes): shut up you stupid c-.’ But The Observer has enough scruples about printing the f-word, let alone the c-word.…

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    ‘I find brains sexy. What I’d really like is a plumber who can read’

    January 13, 2000
    The Martins

    Kathy goes a stage beyond

    March 13, 2001

    Q&A: Kathy Burke

    April 15, 2012

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