Hello. My name is Catherine and I am STILL very excited to be here, almost 3 years on...
My first session was at City and Islington College one Wednesday evening in April. My friend
Kobna had turned up for his session too, which was brilliant, as I was feeling a tad nervous. My first session was the one called
"The problem with you is..." and director
Tim Carroll had given us the nunnery scene in Hamlet to work with. Kobna, a ferociously intellectual type, kept asking very clever questions and Tim Carroll, also of that variety, kept fielding them until he got him to stand up and put his money where his mouth was, and answer the question himself by doing the scene in front of everyone. Thing was, I was his scene partner. It was terrifying doing the exercise in front of strangers (I don't count the super cool brother sister team of
Charlie and Suzannah Wise as strangers, as they who had alerted me to this whole Factory thing in the first place) but I got a lot out of it, and though enervated and exhausted, I knew The Factory was something very special and that I had to go back and be scared and excited as much as I could.
So I did and I found out that being scared is good, taking risks is good and challenging stuff and arguing with conventions is good. And as long as The Factory keeps doing that, I'll keep going to sessions.
Here are some words about other things I have done - and how lots of Factory people have been involved in those too...
I grew up in the Barbican in London and attended Italia Conti. I got my first acting job when I was 11 in BBC children’s drama
Uncle Jack starring Paul Jones and Fenella Fielding. At the age of 15 I played Ilse in
Spring Awakening at the RSC, directed by Tim Supple (and where I met
Ellie Beaven). During this time I went to Bridewell Youth Theatre and Junior Guildhall (where I met Alex Hassell and
Marianne Oldham). Following this I had a regular role in two series of
The Wild House, (with Ellie Beaven again) another BBC children’s comedy nominated for a British Comedy Award 1998. Sadly Sooty won.
After leaving Italia Conti I appeared in
‘Tis Pity She’s a Wh*re at the Young Vic directed by David Lan, alongside Jude Law and Eve Best. There followed another series called
Residents, a BBC drama written by Tony Basgallop in which I played a biker/slag called Tina Conan Jnr.
Other notable TV appearances include:
Eastenders, Doctors, Holby City, Peak Practice, Urban Gothic, Hawk, High Stakes, My Family, 55 Degrees North, Rosemary and Thyme, Egypt (with
Alex Blake)
, The Marchioness Disaster, and
The Bill. I also appeared as Violet in the Hallmark Trilogy
The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells. Other theatre work I should mention includes:
The Life and Times of Young Bob Scallion at the Northcott Theatre Exeter alongside Ade Edmonson and also the long-running comedy review show
Newsrevue at the Canal Café.
More recently I appeared in
The Country Wife at Theatre Royal Haymarket (with
John Hopkins and Tristan Beint),
House of Agnes for Paines Plough,
Walk Hard – Talk Loud at the Tricycle (with Kobna Holdbrook Smith),
Sit and Shiver directed by and starring Steven Berkoff at the New End and then Hackney Empire (with
Leila Crerar). My radio work includes
The Changeling (BBC Radio and The Factory)
The Verb (BBC Radio and The Factory)
’Tis Pity she’s a Wh*re (BBC Radio 3). Film work includes:
Its Not You its Me, Beginner’s Luck, Shades of Mourning and
The Grind.
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be in
A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Tim Carroll at Middle Temple Hall. Factory actors involved included: Alex Hassell,
Elena Pavli,
John Paul Connolly, Danny Rigby and
Jimmy Garnon.
I started performing in
Hamlet in 2007 as Ophelia and since then have learnt and played another 9 roles, in various locations like bars, churches, pumping stations, festivals and even theatres. These include The Hampstead Theatre, The King's Head, The Globe, York Theatre Royal and The Barka Theatre, Budapest. Other Factory productions directed by Tim Carroll in which I have appeared include
The Seagull, (I have learnt and played the role of The Bailiff's Daughter) and
Round One, The Factory's first new writing show.
Besides being involved in The Factory, I love other stuff too, like painting and drawing. I have illustrated for Dennis publishing and in my spare time I paint rather nice portraits of people.
My agent is the lovely Belinda Wright at CDA, 020 7373 3323,
cda@cdalondon.com
