Becky Simpson
Encyclopedia
Becky Simpson is a Manchester
-born actress, writer
and musician
who now lives in the Calderdale
area of West Yorkshire
. In 1997, Simpson won the BBC
Talkie of the Year award for her role in Spoonface Steinberg
.
, had spent several years as an actress and was encouraged to go into writing through her playwright
husband Dave Simpson
. Simpson's two half uncles – Jim
and Jeff
– later went on to become successful football players at Manchester City.
Simpson graduated from Leeds University in 2004 with an arts degree in Creative Writing
.
in a 60-minute monologue
for BBC Radio 4
. The play was written by Lee Hall
(who went on to write Billy Elliot
) and was about a young Jewish autistic girl dying of cancer
. The play later won the Talkie of the Year award and Best Drama of 1997.
Spoonface Steinberg provided important exposure for Simpson, leading to her first TV role in See How They Run – a six-part CBBC
series about a family on the run from gangster
s. The series was part-filmed in London
and Australia
and featured Neighbours
star Peter O'Brien.
and Peak Practice
. She also played Puck
in a radio adaptation of William Shakespeare
's A Midsummer Night's Dream
, starring alongside Richard Griffiths
. In other roles she appeared with future Dr. Who star Christopher Eccleston
in Pig's Paradise and Ricky Tomlinson
in The Virgin of Liverpool. Her most recent television role was in Peak Practice
.
(the then-compere
) before undertaking musical pursuits with him at the Star Club (Hamburg
) and in Calderdale. Simpson married Wes Paul
on 1 June 2010 in Jackson
- Tennessee
. She recorded the Johnny Cash
song Jackson
to coincide with the wedding. The final master was released and featured on ReverbNation in August 2010.
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
-born actress, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
who now lives in the Calderdale
Calderdale
The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England, through which the upper part of the River Calder flows, and from which it takes its name...
area of West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
. In 1997, Simpson won the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Talkie of the Year award for her role in Spoonface Steinberg
Spoonface Steinberg
Spoonface Steinberg is a play by British playwright Lee Hall, first broadcast as a dramatic monologue on 27 January 1997.It began life as the fourth and final play in the God's Country series of linked radio dramas broadcast in 1997 on BBC Radio 4...
.
Personal life
Simpson was born to parents in the entertainment industry. Her mother, Diane WhitleyDiane Whitley
Diane Whitley is a professional writer with over 25 years experience. She originally trained as an actor at Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre following in the footsteps of the likes of Julie Walters, David Threlfall and Richard Griffiths. After encouragement by her husband, Dave Simpson, she...
, had spent several years as an actress and was encouraged to go into writing through her playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
husband Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson (writer)
Dave Simpson, full name David Colin Simpson was born in Salford, Greater Manchester. He has over 25 years experience in the professional writing industry and currently resides in Todmorden, Lancashire...
. Simpson's two half uncles – Jim
Jim Whitley
Jim Whitley is a Zambian-born Northern Irish former professional footballer. Although not officially retired, he has not played since 2006 after leaving Wrexham....
and Jeff
Jeff Whitley
Jeffrey "Jeff" Whitley is a Zambian-born Northern Irish former professional football. He twice won promotion to the Premiership with Manchester City in 2000 and Sunderland in 2005 and was an Northern Ireland international...
– later went on to become successful football players at Manchester City.
Simpson graduated from Leeds University in 2004 with an arts degree in Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
.
Acting career
Simpson's first acting role came in a radio adaptaion of The Little Princess in 1997.Spoonface Steinberg
In 1997, she was offered the role of Spoonface SteinbergSpoonface Steinberg
Spoonface Steinberg is a play by British playwright Lee Hall, first broadcast as a dramatic monologue on 27 January 1997.It began life as the fourth and final play in the God's Country series of linked radio dramas broadcast in 1997 on BBC Radio 4...
in a 60-minute monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
. The play was written by Lee Hall
Lee Hall (playwright)
Lee Hall is an English playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the 2000 film Billy Elliot.-Early life:...
(who went on to write Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in the fictional town of "Everington" in the real County Durham, UK, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older...
) and was about a young Jewish autistic girl dying of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. The play later won the Talkie of the Year award and Best Drama of 1997.
Spoonface Steinberg provided important exposure for Simpson, leading to her first TV role in See How They Run – a six-part CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
series about a family on the run from gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
s. The series was part-filmed in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and featured Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
star Peter O'Brien.
Further roles
Simpson's exposure in Spoonface Steinberg led to further TV roles in Doctors, Always and EveryoneAlways and Everyone
Always and Everyone was a British television drama that ran from 1999 to 2002. It dramatised the hectic everyday lives of the doctors and nurses running the Accident and Emergency department of the large, busy city hospital, St. Victor's. The series has never been released commercially on VHS or...
and Peak Practice
Peak Practice
Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time...
. She also played Puck
Puck (Shakespeare)
Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
in a radio adaptation of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, starring alongside Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths, OBE is an English actor of stage, film and television. He has received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor...
. In other roles she appeared with future Dr. Who star Christopher Eccleston
Christopher Eccleston
Christopher Eccleston is an English stage, film and television actor. His films include Let Him Have It, Shallow Grave, Elizabeth, 28 Days Later, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Others, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra...
in Pig's Paradise and Ricky Tomlinson
Ricky Tomlinson
Eric Tomlinson , known by his stage name Ricky Tomlinson, is an English actor and comedian, best known for his roles as Bobby Grant in Brookside, DCI Charlie Wise in Cracker and James "Jim" Royle in The Royle Family....
in The Virgin of Liverpool. Her most recent television role was in Peak Practice
Peak Practice
Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time...
.
Music
Aside from acting, Simpson is a musician – having regularly performed at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It was here that Simpson met Wes PaulWes Paul
Wester Paul Gerrard is an English guitarist and singer.Wes Paul grew up in Lodge Lane, Liverpool. Between 13 November 2005 and 2 September 2007 he was the stage manager and compère of Sounds of the Sixties Cavern Showcase which ran every Sunday at The Cavern Club, Liverpool...
(the then-compere
Compere
Compère can refer to:* Loyset Compère, a French composer of the Renaissance* Louis Fursy Henri Compere , a French general in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars...
) before undertaking musical pursuits with him at the Star Club (Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
) and in Calderdale. Simpson married Wes Paul
Wes Paul
Wester Paul Gerrard is an English guitarist and singer.Wes Paul grew up in Lodge Lane, Liverpool. Between 13 November 2005 and 2 September 2007 he was the stage manager and compère of Sounds of the Sixties Cavern Showcase which ran every Sunday at The Cavern Club, Liverpool...
on 1 June 2010 in Jackson
Jackson
- United States :*Jackson, Alabama*Jackson, California*Jackson, Georgia*Jackson, Kentucky*Jackson, Louisiana*Jackson, Maine*Jackson, Michigan*Jackson, Minnesota*Jackson, Mississippi, the state capital*Jackson, Missouri*Jackson, Nebraska...
- Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. She recorded the Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
song Jackson
Jackson
- United States :*Jackson, Alabama*Jackson, California*Jackson, Georgia*Jackson, Kentucky*Jackson, Louisiana*Jackson, Maine*Jackson, Michigan*Jackson, Minnesota*Jackson, Mississippi, the state capital*Jackson, Missouri*Jackson, Nebraska...
to coincide with the wedding. The final master was released and featured on ReverbNation in August 2010.