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.

  • News

    Gone in 60 Seconds

    June 17, 2005 /

    Only just noticed a “60-second interview” with Kathy in the Metro – London’s free newspaper – from earlier this month. Don’t know what they call it the 60-second interview: it obviously took far longer than that and takes longer than that to read too. Still, I’ve added it plus an earlier one from 2002 that I found at the same time to the Media section. Enjoy. Also learnt that Kathy apparently turned down a role in a Harry Potter film. I wonder which role. Possibly Mrs Weasley. Although another great British actress – Julie Walters – plays her, and I’d always imagined her as the first choice for the role. Who knows?

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    Betty

    Oooh Betty!

    July 9, 2002

    Back to her roots

    February 3, 2004
    Once Upon A Time in the Midlands

    Once upon a… now

    August 29, 2002
  • Articles,  Media

    Beautiful things: Kathy Burke and Jonathan Harvey

    March 18, 2001 /

    The Independent It’s official. Kathy Burke is a national treasure. Stephen Fry confirmed as much in his appearance last week on BBC2’s Room 101. Wishing to condemn Room 101 to Room 101, he proposed an alternative repository for everything fluffy in life: Room Lovely. The very first thing he suggested placing in Room Lovely was Kathy Burke. “She’s just great,” Fry rhapsodised. “She’s got everything that’s great about being great. She’s incredibly clever and charming – she writes brilliant plays as well as being a wonderful actress and extremely amusing. If she appears on television or in a film, we immediately think ‘oh great’. And she’s gutsy. If I was a woman, she’d be…

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    Carlton preview of Kevin & Perry Go Large

    April 1, 2000
    Kathy Burke at home. Pic by Teri Pengilley

    From Waynetta to director

    February 27, 2009

    With most television stars, their small-screen personas are larger than life. With Kathy Burke, it’s the other way round

    August 13, 1995
  • The Martins
    Articles,  Media

    Kathy goes a stage beyond

    March 13, 2001 /

    The Evening Standard If I had been around 100 years ago, I would have been a male impersonator in the music halls, says Kathy Burke. Instead, the 21st century’s answer to Vesta Tilley has strutted her trousered stuff as the smaller, but stroppier, half of that wonderfully dopey duo Kevin and Perry for the delectation of the telly-watching nation. “It’s a great liberation for a woman to play a man’s role: I’ve been asked to play a couple of blokes on telly since Perry, and I was quite flattered, really. I said no because physically it’s quite painful, know what I mean?” she adds, miming an excruciating clamp-down in the…

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    Kathy comes home: A new sitcom paints a happier picture of Kathy Burke’s childhood

    June 21, 2012

    London’s most famous Burke

    April 11, 2002
    Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

    ‘After I got sick, the toughest thing was what it did to my mental health’

    August 7, 2019

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