Penelope Wilton

Penelope Wilton
Born	Penelope Alice Wilton (1946-06-03) 3 June 1946 Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK
Occupation	actress
Years active	1972–present
Spouse(s)	Daniel Massey (1975–1984) Ian Holm (1991–2001)

Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE (born 3 June 1946) is an English actress of stage, film and TV. Chiefly famous for starring opposite Richard Briers in the BBC situation comedy Ever Decreasing Circles, she has also appeared in Doctor Who and the period drama Downton Abbey, among many other productions. She has twice won the Critics Circle Theatre Award. Wilton has been married to two distinguished actors, Daniel Massey and Ian Holm.

Life and career

Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Alice Travers, a tap dancer and former actress, and Clifford Wilton, a businessman. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant. Her maternal grandparents owned theatres. She and her sisters, Rosemary and Linda, attended the convent school in Newcastle upon Tyne at which their mother had previously taught. Penelope had a successful stage career before breaking into television, and her West End debut was opposite Sir Ralph Richardson.

Her television career began in 1972, playing Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession opposite Robert Powell. She then had several major TV roles, including two of the BBC Television Shakespeare productions (as Desdemona in Othello and Regan in King Lear).

Wilton's film career includes roles in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Cry Freedom (1987), Iris (2001), Calendar Girls (2003) and Shaun of the Dead (2004), Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (2005), in Woody Allen's film Match Point (2005) and in The History Boys (2006).

However she did not become a household name until she appeared with Richard Briers in the 1984 BBC situation comedy, Ever Decreasing Circles which ran for five years. In it she played Ann, long suffering wife of Martin (Briers), an obsessive pedant 'do-gooder'. Throughout the run, Ann seeks a more adventurous lifestyle than that offered as a pillar of the community, and mildly flirts with their considerably more charismatic neighbour Paul (Peter Egan) but ultimately she remains faithful to Martin.

Between 1975 and 1984 she was married to the actor Daniel Massey. Wilton and Massey had a daughter, Alice, born in 1977. Between 1991 and 2001 she was married to Sir Ian Holm (and in 1998 after he was knighted she became Lady Holm) and they appeared together as Pod and Homily in the BBC's 1993 adaptation of The Borrowers.

In 2005 Wilton guest starred as Harriet Jones, MP for two episodes in the BBC's revival of the popular TV science-fiction series Doctor Who. This guest role was written especially for her by the programme's chief writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, with whom she had previously worked on Bob and Rose (ITV, 2001). The character of Jones returned as Prime Minister in "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor Who 2005 Christmas special. In the first part of the 2008 series finale, The Stolen Earth, she made a final appearance, now as the former Prime Minister who sacrifices herself to the Daleks so that the Doctor's companions can contact him. She appeared in four episodes overall.

Wilton has also appeared on television as Barbara Poole, the mother of a missing woman, in the BBC television drama series Five Days in 2005; and in ITV's drama Half Broken Things (October 2007) and the BBC production of The Passion (Easter 2008). In 2010 and 2011, she appeared as Isobel Crawley in the first and second series of the hit period drama Downton Abbey. She was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in April 2008.

Awards and recognition

She has twice won the Critics Circle Theatre Award – in 1981 for her performance in Much Ado About Nothing, and in 1993 for The Deep Blue Sea. In 2001 she was nominated for the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for her performance in The Little Foxes at the Donmar Warehouse. In 2004 she was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama. In 2012 she received an honorary doctorate from Scarborough University.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1972	Thirty-Minute Theatre		TV series (1 episode: "An Affair of Honour")
	Country Matters	Rachel Sullens	TV series (1 episode: "The Sullens Sisters")
	BBC Play of the Month	Regan/Vivie Warren	TV series (2 episodes: 1972–1975)
1973	The Pearcross Girls	Anna Pearcross/Helen Charlesworth/Julia Pearcross/Lottie Merchant	TV series (4 episodes)
	The Song of Songs	Lilli Czepanek	TV drama
1976	Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd		TV drama
1977	Joseph Andrews	Mrs. Wilson
	The Norman Conquests: Living Together	Annie	TV drama
	The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden	Annie	TV drama
	The Norman Conquests: Table Manners	Annie	TV drama
1980	Play for Today	Helen/Virginia Carlion	TV series (2 episodes: 1980–1981)
1981	The French Lieutenant's Woman	Sonia
	Othello	Desdemona	TV drama
1982	The Tale of Beatrix Potter	Beatrix Potter	TV drama
	King Lear	Regan	TV drama
1984	Laughterhouse	Alice Singleton
	Ever Decreasing Circles	Ann Bryce	TV series (27 episodes: 1984–1989)
1986	Clockwise	Pat
	C.A.T.S. Eyes	Angela Lane	TV series (1 episode: "Good as New")
	The Monocled Mutineer	Lady Angela Forbes	TV series (2 episodes)
1987	Cry Freedom	Wendy Woods
1990	4 Play	Julia	TV series (1 episode: "Madly in Love")
1992	Blame It on the Bellboy	Patricia Fulford
	Screaming	Beatrice	TV series
	The Borrowers	Homily	TV series
1993	The Secret Rapture	Marion French
	The Return of the Borrowers	Homily	TV series
1994	Performance: The Deep Blue Sea	Hester Collyer	TV series (2 episodes: 1994–1995)
1995	Carrington	Lady Ottoline Morrell
1998	This Could Be the Last Time	Marjorie	TV film
	Talking Heads 2	Rosemary	TV mini-series (1 episode: "Nights in the Gardens of Spain")
	Alice Through the Looking Glass	White Queen	TV film
1999	Gooseberries Don't Dance		short
	Kavanagh QC	Barbara Watkins	TV series (1 episode: "Time of Need")
	Tom's Midnight Garden	Aunt Melbourne
	Wives and Daughters	Mrs. Hamley	TV mini-series (2 episodes)
2000	Rockaby		TV short
2001	The Whistle-Blower	Heather Graham	TV film
	Victoria & Albert	Princess Victoria, Duchess of Kent	TV film
	Bob & Rose	Monica Gossage	TV series (3 episodes)
	Iris	Janet Stone
2003	Lucky Jim	Celia Welch	TV film
	Calendar Girls	Ruth
2004	Shaun of the Dead	Barbara
2005	Falling	Daisy Langrish	TV film
	Match Point	Eleanor Hewett
	Pride & Prejudice	Mrs. Gardiner
	Doctor Who	Harriet Jones	TV series (4 episodes: 2005–2008)
2006	Celebration	Julie	TV film
	The History Boys	Mrs. Bibby
2007	Five Days	Barbara Poole	TV series (4 episodes) Nominated – RTS Award – Best Actor
	Half Broken Things	Jean	TV film
2008	The Passion	Mary	TV mini-series
2009	Marple: They Do It with Mirrors	Carrie Louise Serrocold	TV film
	Margot	B.Q.	TV film
2010	My Family	Rosemary Matthews	TV series (1 episode: "Wheelie Ben")
	Downton Abbey (1st Series)	Isobel Crawley	TV series (7 episodes)
2011	South Riding	Mrs. Beddows	TV series (3 episodes)
	Downton Abbey (2nd Series)	Isobel Crawley	TV series (8 episodes)
2012	The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel	Jean

Stage

Penelope Wilton commenced her professional career at the Nottingham Playhouse, and famously appeared alongside Nicholas Clay in The Dandy Lion. She was Regan to Michael Hordern's King Lear at Nottingham Playhouse in 1970; Anna Calder-Marshall played Cordelia, and Thelma Ruby was the elder sister, Goneril.

• Mary, West of Suez, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1971.
• Araminta, The Philanthropist, Royal Court Theatre, then Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York City, 1971.
• Maud, The Great Exhibition, Hampstead Theatre Club, London, 1972.
• Sophia, The Director of the Opera, Chichester Festival, Chichester, England, 1973.
• Masha, The Seagull, Chichester Festival, 1973.
• Dikson, Something's Burning, Mermaid Theatre, London, 1974.
• Ruth, The Norman Conquests, Greenwich Theatre, London, 1974.
• Dora Carrington, Bloomsbury, Phoenix Theatre, London, 1974.
• Isabella, Measure For Measure, Greenwich Theatre, London, 1975.
• Second woman, "Play," Play and Others, Royal Court Theatre, 1976.
• Prudence Malone, Plunder, National Theatre Company, Lyttelton Theatre, London, 1978.
• Julia Craven, The Philanderer, National Theatre Company, Lyttelton Theatre, 1978.
• Emma, Betrayal, National Theatre Company, Lyttelton Theatre, 1978.
• Barbara, Tishoo, Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1979.
• Ann Whitefield and Dona Ana, Man and Superman, National Theatre Company, Olivier Theatre, London, 1981.
• Beatrice, Much Ado about Nothing, National Theatre Company, Olivier Theatre, 1981.
• Barbara Undershaft, Major Barbara, National Theatre Company, Lyttelton Theatre, 1982.
• Marion French, The Secret Rapture, National Theatre Company, Lyttelton Theatre, 1988.
• Hermione, Andromache, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1988.
• Piano, National Theatre Company, Cottesloe Theatre, London, 1990.
• Deborah, A Kind of Alaska, The Collection, and The Lover, Donmar Warehouse, London, 1999.
• Arkadina, The Seagull, Barbican Theatre, London, 2000.
• Regina, Lillian Hellman's Little Foxes, Donmar Warehouse, October 2001.
• Sonya, Afterplay play by Brian Friel, Gielgud Theatre, London, England, UK/ Gate Theatre, Dublin, September 2002.
• Bernada, Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, National Theatre Lyttelton, March 2005.
• Female voice, Samuel Beckett's Eh Joe at the Gate Theatre, Dublin and the Duke of York's in the West End. 2006.
• Livia, Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, for the RSC, February 2006.
• Ella Rentheim, Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Donmar Warehouse, February 2007.
• Agatha, The Family Reunion, Donmar Warehouse, London, 2008.
• Gertude, Hamlet, Donmar Warehouse's West End season – Wyndham's Theatre, London, 2009.
• Agnes, A Delicate Balance, Almeida Theatre, London - 2011.

External links

• Penelope Wilton at IMDb
• Penelope Wilton at the Internet Broadway Database
• Gareth McLean, Unspoken worlds, 25 October 2007, The Guardian
• Ancestry of Penelope Wilton