Kathy Burke

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

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  • Home
  • News
  • Career
    • Films
    • Television
    • Directing
    • Theatre
    • Awards
    • TV appearances
  • Podcast
  • Media
  • About

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

    Many happy returns

    June 14, 2021 /

    It was Kathy’s birthday on Sunday i.e. yesterday 13 June, making her older than 50 and younger than 60. She was on Twitter about it, in response to people wishing her Happy Birthday, and had some observations too: “Thanks so much for all the beautiful birthday messages yesterday. I’d especially like to thank Raheem Sterling for scoring a goal in celebration and the BBC for airing Paddington 2. I really didn’t know they cared.” The goal was the winner for England against Croatia, at Wembley no less, in England’s first game of Euro 2020, so cause for celebration indeed. And Paddington 2 is, of course, an absolutely brilliant film (on…

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    Kieren McCarthy 1 Comment

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    Steeling the Turbine

    December 21, 2019
    Hampstead Theater

    Born bad beckons

    April 28, 2003

    Wakey wakey! Kath’s dying to be heard

    November 28, 2022
  • Articles,  Media

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

    June 21, 2012 /

    Her childhood was scarred by cancer and alcoholism, yet ‘Walking and Talking’ paints a happy picture of her youth. The Independent Over the years, publishers have constantly pestered Kathy Burke to write her autobiography. But the actress, writer and director has always rejected their advances, considering such books “money for old rope”. Now, Burke has finally been persuaded – after a fashion. She has scripted Walking and Talking, a delightful new Sky Atlantic comedy about her own childhood. “Walking and Talking is my autobiography,” she confirms. “It’s best to do it that way, rather than spend months writing a book that then ends up in the bargain bucket with all…

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

    January 5, 1997

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

    September 9, 1999

    60-second interview: Kathy Burke

    June 2, 2005
  • Kathy Burke at home. Pic by Teri Pengilley
    Articles,  Media

    From Waynetta to director

    February 27, 2009 /

    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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    Beautiful things: Kathy Burke and Jonathan Harvey

    March 18, 2001

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

    June 21, 2012

    60-second interview: Kathy Burke

    July 9, 2002
  • Articles,  Media

    Kathy Burke: Why I’m giving up acting

    July 9, 2002 /

    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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    My acting days are over

    October 19, 2004

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

    June 21, 2012

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

    August 13, 1995
  • 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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    Burke’s peerage

    July 13, 1999

    Kathy comes home

    January 16, 1999

    ‘I’m a person who walks on eggshells’

    October 23, 2005
  • 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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    Burke’s peerage

    July 13, 1999

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

    June 21, 2012

    Kathy comes home

    February 1, 2004
  • Articles,  Media

    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 Independent On the front door of Kathy Burke’s house, there is a sticker of a slavering bull terrier. Perhaps for fear that this should give too menacing an impression, there are a couple of stickers of guinea-pigs as well. Inside the airy Islington council maisonette, a sly glance at the bookshelves of the best British character actress of her generation reveals – among other impressive tomes – Charles Bukowski’s Post Office, a slang thesaurus and Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. In brazen contravention of the international actor’s bookshelf charter, these have the look of having been read. If I was a star of stage and screen, currently directing the…

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

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    60-second interview: Kathy Burke

    June 2, 2005

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

    June 21, 2012

    Burke’s peerage

    July 13, 1999

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