Denise Coffey is an English actress, director, and playwright.

After training at the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is a conservatoire of music, drama, and dance in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Educational Association, it is the busiest performing arts venue in Scotland...

, Coffey began a career in repertory at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, then moved to the Palladium Theatre there. She later worked for 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...

 as a radio interviewer, before appearing in London's West End.

Coffey has had a few supporting film roles. These have included Sidonia in the Waltz of the Toreadors

Waltz of the Toreadors (film)

Waltz of the Toreadors is a 1962 film directed by John Guillermin. It stars Peter Sellers and Dany Robin. It was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1963.-Cast:*Peter Sellers as General Leo Fitzjohn*Dany Robin as Ghislaine...

(1962), Peg in Georgy Girl

Georgy Girl

Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....

(1966), Soberness in Far From The Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967 film)

Far from the Madding Crowd is a 1967 British drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted from the book of the same name by Thomas Hardy. It was Schlesinger's fourth film and marked a stylistic shift away from his earlier works which explored contemporary urban mores. The cinematography was by...

(1967), and Mrs. E in Viv Stanshall

Vivian Stanshall

Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, painter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.-The great...

's Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (film)

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is a 1980 British film based on the eponymous character created by Vivian Stanshall. It starred Trevor Howard as Sir Henry and Stanshall himself as Henry's brother Hubert. Unusually, the film was released in sepia-toned monochrome. After a long wait, while the film...

(1980). Her television appearances include Do Not Adjust Your Set

Do Not Adjust Your Set

Do Not Adjust Your Set was a children's television series produced originally by Rediffusion, London, then by the fledgling Thames Television for British commercial television channel ITV from 26 December 1967 to 14 May 1969....

, the Stanley Baxter

Stanley Baxter

Stanley Baxter is a Scottish comic actor and impressionist, best known for his British television shows. He worked in radio, theatre, television and film.-Early life:...

series (1968, 1971), Girls About Town (1970–71), Hold the Front Page (1974; which she also created), and End of Part One

End of Part One

End of Part One was a British television comedy sketch show written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall and produced by Simon Brett, it was made by London Weekend Television. It ran for two series on ITV, from 1979 to 1980 and was an attempt at a TV version of The Burkiss Way...

(1979).

On radio Coffey featured in The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, in the first series of The Burkiss Way

The Burkiss Way

The Burkiss Way was a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series broadcast from August 1976 to November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in early episodes by John Mason, Colin Bostock-Smith, Douglas Adams, John Lloyd and others. The show starred Denise...

and in The Next Programme Follows Almost Immediately

The Next Programme Follows Almost Immediately

The Next Programme Follows Almost Immediately was a cult BBC comedy of the 1970s, now almost completely forgotten.The programme starred Bill Wallis, David Jason, Denise Coffey, David Gooderson and Jonathan Cecil...

and has made guest appearances on several programmes, including I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...

and Just A Minute

Just a Minute

Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Its first transmission on Radio 4 was on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The Radio 4 programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003....

. Most recently she starred with Miriam Margolyes

Miriam Margolyes

Miriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...

 in Alison and Maud

Alison and Maud

Alison and Maud was a radio program written by Sue Limb that aired in two series from December 2002-Apr 2004. There were twelve 25 minute episodes in total and it was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It has subsequently been repeated on BBC Radio 7...

.

She has also enjoyed success as a theatre director, including several notable productions at the Shaw Festival

Shaw Festival

The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, where she now lives, such as Noël Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

's Private Lives

Private Lives

Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...

and Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's Androcles And The Lion

Androcles and the Lion (play)

Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture...

and Pygmalion

Pygmalion (play)

Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...

.
She has also recently appeared (4th of November 2011) in a lottery advert on ITV

External links