Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is an English
stage, screen and television actress, voice artist, musician, and
singer. She is perhaps best known for her role as "Bubble" on the
cult TV series
Absolutely
Fabulous.
Early life
Horrocks,
the youngest of three children, was born Barbara Jane
Horrocks in Rawtenstall
, Lancashire
, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker,
and John Horrocks, a sales representative. She trained first at
the Oldham
College
and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes and began her career with the
Royal Shakespeare
Company. She first drew critical notice for her
performance in the film Life is
Sweet (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in
the West
End
play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in
which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became a household
name with the role of
Bubble in
Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2005), in
which she also played Katy Grin in the last two seasons of the
series.
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
While working on
Road, a play
directed by
Jim Cartwright, Horrocks
warmed up by doing singing impressions of
Judy Garland,
Shirley
Bassey, and
Ethel Merman, among
others. Cartwright was so impressed with her gift for mimicry he
wrote the play
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice to
showcase her talent.
She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best
Actress for her performance in the 1992 West End production,
directed by her then-boyfriend Sam
Mendes. She reprised her role in the 1998 screen
adaptation,
Little
Voice, which earned her nominations for the
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or
Comedy, the
BAFTA Award for
Best Actress in a Leading Role, the
Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or
Comedy, the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female
Actor in a Leading Role - Motion Picture, and the
British Independent Film
Award for Best Actress.
In 2000 Horrocks released the CD
Further Adventures Of Little
Voice, again singing in the style of her favourite divas. The
recording includes duets with
Ewan
McGregor,
Robbie Williams, and
Dean Martin. Horrocks collaborated once
more with Robbie Williams the following year, for a cover of the
Bobby Darin song "Things" on Williams's
album
Swing When You're
Winning.
Career
In addition to
Road and
The Rise and Fall of Little
Voice, Horrocks has appeared on stage in
Ask for the
Moon (Hampstead, 1986),
A Colliers Friday Night
(Greenwich, 1987),
Valued Friends (Hampstead, 1989),
The Debutante Ball (Hampstead, 1989), She aapeared in
"Catherine Cookson's The Fifteen Streets, alongside Sean Bean and
Owen Teale in 1989.
), Our Own Kind (Bush, 1991),
Deadly Advice (Fletcher, 1993), Cabaret (Donmar Warehouse
, 1994), Macbeth
(Greenwich Theatre, 1995) and Absurd Person Singular (Garrick
Theatre, 2007). Her last West End appearance was in
Sweet Panic, the 2003
Stephen
Poliakoff drama in which she portrayed a neurotic mother locked
in a battle of wills with her disturbed son's psychologist.
She
starred in Richard
Jones's critically acclaimed production of The Good Soul of Szechuan at
the Young
Vic
in 2008 and was reunited with Jones in a new
musical production of Annie Get Your Gun, which
opened at the Young
Vic in October 2009.
Horrocks's voiceover talents have been used on the big screen in
films like
Chicken Run (2000),
Christmas Carol: The
Movie (2001),
Corpse
Bride (2005),
Garfield: A Tail of Two
Kitties (2006) and
Tinker
Bell (2008) (in which she was Fairy Mary), and on radio as
Fenchurch in the audio adaptation of
Douglas Adams' popular science fiction series
The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for BBC Radio 4.
Horrocks's other notable television credits include
Absolutely
Fabulous,
Victoria Wood
-
We'd Quite Like To Apologise,
Bad Girl,
Boon,
Heartland,
Hunting Venus,
La
Nonna,
Leaving Home,
Never Mind the Horrocks,
Nightlife,
Wyrd
Sisters, The
Foxbusters,
Red Dwarf,
Some Kind of
Life,
Suffer the Little Children,
The Storyteller,
The Garden,
Fifi & the
Flowertots, 'Little Princess' and
Welcome to the
Times. She was the subject of an episode of the
genealogy documentary series
Who Do You Think You Are? in
2006. That same year she played the title role in
The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, a
drama about an ordinary woman who is elected
Prime Minister. She also appeared in the 2007
Robbie the Reindeer
BBC television animations filmed in aid of
Comic Relief.
For ten years,
Horrocks appeared with Prunella
Scales in a series of commercials for the UK supermarket
chain Tesco
. She
narrated BBC2's television series
The
Speaker in April 2009.
Also in 2009, Horrocks took the lead in the
BBC
TV production
Gracie!, a drama portraying the life of
Gracie Fields during
World War II and her relationship with the
Italian-born director
Monty Banks
(played by
Tom Hollander). The
screenplay, written by her long-term partner Nick Vivian, once
again displays Horrocks' natural ability of capturing the voice and
persona of a famous entertainer.
Personal life
Horrocks lives with playwright Nick Vivian.
The couple live in
Twickenham
with their children, son Dylan and daughter
Molly. She is frequently seen in the audience of
Strictly Come
Dancing, of which she is a fan. Horrocks was in a
relationship with singer
Ian Dury for more
than a year in the 1980s and with
Sam
Mendes in the 1990s.
Select filmography
Awards and honors
Notes
- Jane Horrocks at The Guardian Unlimited
Film
- Jane Horrocks bio at BBC.co.uk
- Jane Horrocks at FilmReference.com
- Theatre review at The Guardian
Unlimited
- Official Young Vic announcement
External links
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