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Kathy Burke: ‘A national treasure? I’m the opposite!’
After four near-death moments, Kathy Burke is returning to directing – and acting. The Telegraph Kathy Burke keeps being mistaken for someone quite different. But it’s not a problem. In fact, she couldn’t be happier about it. The director and actress, widely loved for playing such roles as Perry (from Kevin and Perry) and Waynetta Slob (catchphrase: “I am smokin’ a fag!”) alongside Harry Enfield, takes up the story. “People come up to me all the time and say, ‘All right, Perry? How’s Kevin?’ It could be annoying, but I’m actually really glad. I’m knocking on 50, and I’m still getting recognised for playing a 14-year-old boy. It makes me…
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From Waynetta to director
She’s given up acting – much to the delight of Britain’s hottest comedy duo. The Independent Hanging in pride of place over the dining room table in Kathy Burke’s north London home is a still from the set of Nil by Mouth, the acclaimed domestic-violence drama for which she deservedly won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes film festival in 1997. But there’s a surprise. The photo depicts the film’s director, Gary Oldman, leaning over to whisper something to her co-star Ray Winstone. Burke is not in the picture. It’s an apt image. For Burke, one of our most adored actresses, is now far happier to be absent from…
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Kathy Burke: Why I’m giving up acting
Kathy Burke, one of this country’s best-loved character actresses, is directing her first West End play. She tells James Rampton about the frustrations of being an actor and why she decided to quit The Independent Five years ago, Kathy Burke was being taken in Luc Besson’s private jet to the Cannes Film Festival to pick up her Best Actress Award for her stunning performance as the battered wife in Nil by Mouth. Hollywood producers were door-stepping her like so many double-glazing salesmen. This week, she is to be found in the rather more humble surroundings of a run-down church hall normally used by an Islington Scout group. But she couldn’t be…
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Patron saint of underdogs
The Telegraph Kathy Burke is on her way to becoming an institution. As she puts it: “I’ve got one of those ‘national treasure’ labels.” The 36-year-old actress is often met with smiles from passers-by and a cheery “All right, Kaff?”. Burke has been cherished for some time. Appearing on TV with Harry Enfield throughout the 1990s made her a household name, her gallery of unlovelies inspiring widespread feelings of revulsion and adulation. Most memorably, she gave us Waynetta Slob, fag-in-mouth wife of Enfield’s foul, beer-bellied Wayne; Perry, mumbling sidekick to the acned adolescent monster Kevin; and Lulu, the dribbling baby sister of Enfield’s vindictive toddler Harry. It wasn’t until 1997,…
