SHEILA HANCOCK
Sheila’s extensive career spans theatre, radio, television and film, and she is also now enjoying a career as a writer and features presenter. She has been honoured with two Lifetime Achievement Awards: Women in Film and Television, and The Lady Ratlings as well as an OBE for services to drama in 1974, with a CBE following in 2011, and a DBE in 2020 awarded for services to Drama & Charity.
Edie, in which she plays the title role is now available on Netflix and other download platforms. Her other work in films ranges from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Love and Death on Long Island and Yes, to Carry on Cleo and 3 Men and a Little Lady. She has also just worked on the features The More You Ignore Me andThe Dark Mile.
Her most recent TV appearances include ITV's Unforgotten (to be released shortly); Sky One's A Discovery of Witches, and three series of Delicious; Great Canal Journeys and Celebrity Gogglebox for Ch4 as well as Sheila Hancock Brushes Up: The Art of Watercolours and her Perspectives: The Brilliant Bronte Sisters.
She was nominated for a BAFTA for her performances in The Russian Bride, and the BBC series Bedtime, and other Television work includes ITV's Endeavour; Sky TV's 'Urban Myth' drama The Dali and The Cooper; Before I Call You In, a monologue for television written especially for her by Hugo Blick, as well as New Tricks, Hustle, The Catherine Tate Show, Nellie and Melba, Moving On, Just Henry and After Thomas. She was also a judge on Over The Rainbow, the search for Dorothy in the West End’s Wizard of Oz, and a contestant in a Christmas Special of Strictly Come Dancing.
Her Theatre roles include Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret winning an Olivier Award and the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance; Mother Superior in Sister Act (Olivier nomination), Big Edie in the UK premiere of Grey Gardens, Emmie Packer in Barking in Essex and ‘Mum’ in The Anniversary, a role played by Bette Davis while Sheila played the daughter-in-law, in the film version. She was in the original London productions of Annie and Sweeney Todd (Olivier nomination), and Rose in Gypsy at West Yorkshire Playhouse (TMA Best Actress Award). Her Broadway debut in Entertaining Mr Sloane earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in Play. She reunited with director Thom Southerland to play Maude in Harold and Maude at the Charing Cross Theatre, London in February 2018, and played at the Chichester Festival Theatre in Tim Firth's musical This is My Family in Spring 2019.
As well as performing extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, Sheila was the first woman Artistic Director of the RSC tour, and the first woman to direct in the Olivier Theatre, National Theatre. She was also Associate Artistic Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company.
Her work as an author includes The Two of Us for which she won Author of the Year Award; its follow up Just Me; Ramblings of an Actress, and most recently her debut novel Miss Carter’s War which was nominated for Best Political novel of the year. She is currently working on her fifth book.
