Kate Robbins
Encyclopedia
Katherine Robbins is an English
actress, comedienne and singer.
of Paul McCartney
and older sister of Amy Robbins
(her mother and McCartney were first cousins). She attended Wirral Grammar School for Girls and won the Drama Prizes each year, notably with her monologue "All this glitters is not gold". Her first released recording, in 1978, was of the song "Tomorrow
", owned by McCartney's music publishing company, from the musical Annie
. Robbins first came to prominence whilst representing United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980
as part of the group Prima Donna
. They finished third.
The following year, Robbins joined the cast of the ITV soap opera Crossroads, playing the part of a pop singer who was recording a single in the fictional motel's basement recording studio
. The song, "More Than In Love", was released commercially in the UK (credited as Kate Robbins and Beyond) and gave Robbins a major hit single
, reaching number 2 in the UK Singles Chart
. It was her only hit. The backing group Beyond had taken part in the UK's Song for Europe contest earlier in the year, losing to Bucks Fizz
.
Robbins wrote the first theme tune to Surprise, Surprise and provided almost all of the female voices on the television show Spitting Image
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 1986 Granada Television
sketch show Robbins featured Kate, her brother Ted Robbins
, and her sisters Amy Robbins
, Jane Robbins, and Emma Robbins, the latter now best known as one of the singers with The Sheilas
.
She featured in the original series of Dead Ringers
on BBC Radio 4
in 2000.
Robbins also provided the English language
dubbing for Europeans, featured on the Channel 4
series Eurotrash
and, in 2006, made two appearances on the BBC Radio 4
programme Just a Minute
.
In 2007, Robbins was awarded an Honorary Bachelor of Arts degree from Bedfordshire University, for her lifetime contribution to the Performing Arts.
Robbins is separated from composer Keith Atack, by whom she has three children, including actress Emily Atack
who played Charlotte Hinchliffe in The Inbetweeners
.
In December 2010, Robbins released her third album, a jazz
based affair, entitled Soho Nights, which was written as a collaboration with the Italian saxophonist Alessandro Tomei, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios
in London.
, Fated.
In 2005, she played Joan alongside Johnny Vegas in Sex Lives of the Potato Men
. In 2006 she appeared with James Franco
and Jean Reno
in the movie Flyboys playing the role of Clarisse, a brothel Madame. She has been cast in the comedy film Lunchbox as a man-hungry teacher called Suzanne.
Robbins appeared in two series of the BBC Television
comedy series dinnerladies
, playing the character 'Babs' a friend of 'Petula Gordino' played by Julie Walters
. Robbins later appeared with the sitcom's writer Victoria Wood
in the BBC TV special Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings.
Robbins has worked on many comedy TV shows including Last of the Summer Wine
, The Harry Enfield Show, Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights
, and Shooting Stars
. She has also appeared in Holby City
, two series of Where the Heart Is
, Doctors, and Casualty
. She is currently working on the second series of The Legend of Dick and Dom for BBC One, and worked on Soapington Way in 2010, which was written by Harry Hill
.
sound-a-like on a lager advert. She was the 'Doris Day' voice on a Waitrose
supermarket commercial. Her singing can be heard on television advertisement
s for Clover, Debenhams
, First Choice Holidays and many more. She also recorded the Capital Radio
jingle package for Sue Manning Productions.
She also played the singing ring in the mini series, The 10th Kingdom, which aired in 2000.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
actress, comedienne and singer.
Biography
Robbins is a first cousin once removedCousin
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...
of Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and older sister of Amy Robbins
Amy Robbins
Amy Robbins is an English actress best known for her role as Dr. Jill Weatherill in the British television series The Royal. Prior to her current role she played Police Sergeant Rachel James in the BBC One hospital drama Casualty for one series...
(her mother and McCartney were first cousins). She attended Wirral Grammar School for Girls and won the Drama Prizes each year, notably with her monologue "All this glitters is not gold". Her first released recording, in 1978, was of the song "Tomorrow
Tomorrow (1977 song)
"Tomorrow" is a song from the musical Annie, with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, published in 1977.-Production history in the musical:...
", owned by McCartney's music publishing company, from the musical Annie
Annie (musical)
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
. Robbins first came to prominence whilst representing United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980
Eurovision Song Contest 1980
The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 19 April 1980 in The Hague. The presenter was Marlous Fluitsma, although each song was introduced by a presenter from the nation represented...
as part of the group Prima Donna
Prima Donna (band)
Prima Donna were the United Kingdom representatives in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980. The group comprised sisters Kate Robbins and Jane Robbins, Sally Ann Triplett, Danny Finn, Alan Coates and Lance Aston...
. They finished third.
The following year, Robbins joined the cast of the ITV soap opera Crossroads, playing the part of a pop singer who was recording a single in the fictional motel's basement recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
. The song, "More Than In Love", was released commercially in the UK (credited as Kate Robbins and Beyond) and gave Robbins a major hit single
Hit single
A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio...
, reaching number 2 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. It was her only hit. The backing group Beyond had taken part in the UK's Song for Europe contest earlier in the year, losing to Bucks Fizz
Bucks Fizz (band)
Bucks Fizz are an English pop group who achieved success in the 1980s, most notably for winning the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Making Your Mind Up". The group was formed in January 1981 specifically for the contest and comprised four vocalists: Bobby G, Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and...
.
Robbins wrote the first theme tune to Surprise, Surprise and provided almost all of the female voices on the television show Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 1986 Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
sketch show Robbins featured Kate, her brother Ted Robbins
Ted Robbins
Ted Robbins is an English comedian, actor, broadcaster, radio DJ, radio personality, voice-over artist and television personalityRobbins currently presents a morning show on BBC Radio Lancashire from 9am - 11am on weekdays....
, and her sisters Amy Robbins
Amy Robbins
Amy Robbins is an English actress best known for her role as Dr. Jill Weatherill in the British television series The Royal. Prior to her current role she played Police Sergeant Rachel James in the BBC One hospital drama Casualty for one series...
, Jane Robbins, and Emma Robbins, the latter now best known as one of the singers with The Sheilas
Sheilas' Wheels
Sheilas' Wheels is a UK car insurance brand that targets its insurance products to women, although it also sells to men. The brand was launched in October 2005 by Peter Wood, and is part of Esure, the insurance group he founded with HBOS in 1999...
.
She featured in the original series of Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers (comedy)
Dead Ringers is a UK radio and television comedy impressions broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and later BBC Two. The programme was devised by producer Bill Dare and developed with Jon Holmes, Andy Hurst and Simon Blackwell. It starred Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Phil Cornwell, Kevin Connelly and Mark Perry...
on 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...
in 2000.
Robbins also provided the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
dubbing for Europeans, featured on the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
series Eurotrash
Eurotrash (TV series)
Eurotrash is a 30-minute magazine-format programme in English produced by Rapido Television. It was shown in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 from 1993 and was a late-night comical review of weird and wonderful topics from around the world...
and, in 2006, made two appearances on the 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...
programme 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....
.
In 2007, Robbins was awarded an Honorary Bachelor of Arts degree from Bedfordshire University, for her lifetime contribution to the Performing Arts.
Robbins is separated from composer Keith Atack, by whom she has three children, including actress Emily Atack
Emily Atack
Emily Jane Atack is a British actress best known for her role as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in the award winning E4 series The Inbetweeners. She also appeared in Heartbeat , Blue Murder and was featured in a number of lads' mags.Born in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, she is the daughter of actress Kate...
who played Charlotte Hinchliffe in The Inbetweeners
The Inbetweeners
The Inbetweeners is a British sitcom which aired for three series from 2008 to 2010 on E4. Created and written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, the show follows the life of suburban teenager Will , and three of his friends at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive. The Inbetweeners Movie was...
.
In December 2010, Robbins released her third album, a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
based affair, entitled Soho Nights, which was written as a collaboration with the Italian saxophonist Alessandro Tomei, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
in London.
Film and television work
Robbins acted in feature films. She was named Best Supporting Actress at the Angel Awards of the Monaco International Film Festival, for her role as Kathleen in the low-budget British filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, Fated.
In 2005, she played Joan alongside Johnny Vegas in Sex Lives of the Potato Men
Sex Lives of the Potato Men
Sex Lives of the Potato Men is a British comedy film released in 2004.The film is about the sexual antics of a group of potato delivery men in Birmingham and stars Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook....
. In 2006 she appeared with James Franco
James Franco
James Edward Franco is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, performance artist and instructor at New York University. He left college in order to pursue acting and started off his career by making guest appearances on television series in the 1990s...
and Jean Reno
Jean Reno
Jean Reno is a French actor. Working in French, English, Spanish and Italian, he has appeared not only in numerous successful Hollywood productions such as The Pink Panther, Godzilla, The Da Vinci Code, Mission: Impossible, Ronin and Couples Retreat, but also in European productions such as the...
in the movie Flyboys playing the role of Clarisse, a brothel Madame. She has been cast in the comedy film Lunchbox as a man-hungry teacher called Suzanne.
Robbins appeared in two series of the BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
comedy series dinnerladies
Dinnerladies
Dinnerladies is a British sitcom written, co-produced by and starring Victoria Wood. It ran on BBC One for 16 episodes from 1998 to 2000.-Plot:...
, playing the character 'Babs' a friend of 'Petula Gordino' played by Julie Walters
Julie Walters
Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...
. Robbins later appeared with the sitcom's writer Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...
in the BBC TV special Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings.
Robbins has worked on many comedy TV shows including Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...
, The Harry Enfield Show, Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights
Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights
Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights was a BAFTA-nominated English sitcom about The Phoenix Club, a working men's club in the northern English town of Farnworth, Greater Manchester. The show was written by Neil Fitzmaurice, Peter Kay and Dave Spikey, produced by Goodnight Vienna Productions and Ovation...
, and Shooting Stars
Shooting Stars
Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its axing in 2011...
. She has also appeared in Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
, two series of Where the Heart Is
Where the Heart Is (1997 TV series)
Where the Heart Is is a British television drama series set in the fictional town Skelthwaite.First shown in 1997, it was created by Ashley Pharoah and Vicky Featherstone...
, Doctors, and Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
. She is currently working on the second series of The Legend of Dick and Dom for BBC One, and worked on Soapington Way in 2010, which was written by Harry Hill
Harry Hill
Harry Hill , is a Perrier Award–winning English comedian, author and television presenter. A former medical doctor , Hill began his career in comedy with the popular radio show Harry Hill's Fruit Corner.-Personal life:Hill was born in Woking,...
.
Jingles
Robbins can also be heard as a voice-over artist on many commercials. She was the Edith PiafÉdith Piaf
Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
sound-a-like on a lager advert. She was the 'Doris Day' voice on a Waitrose
Waitrose
Waitrose Limited is an upmarket chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom and is the food division of the British retailer and worker co-operative the John Lewis Partnership. Its head office is in Bracknell, Berkshire, England...
supermarket commercial. Her singing can be heard on television advertisement
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
s for Clover, Debenhams
Debenhams
Debenhams plc is a British retailer operating under a department store format in the UK, Ireland and Denmark, and franchise stores in other countries. The Company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to around 160 shops...
, First Choice Holidays and many more. She also recorded the Capital Radio
Capital Radio
Capital London is a London based radio station which launched on 16 October 1973 and is owned by Global Radio. On 3 January 2011 it formed part of the nine station Capital radio network.- Pre-launch :...
jingle package for Sue Manning Productions.
She also played the singing ring in the mini series, The 10th Kingdom, which aired in 2000.
Singles
- "Tomorrow" / "Crowds Of You" (Anchor ANC 1054) - 1978 [by Kate Robbins]
- "Love Enough For Two" / "Missing Out On Love" (Ariola ARO 221) - 1980 [by Prima Donna]
- "More Than In Love" / "Now" (RCA 69) - 1981 [by Kate Robbins and Beyond] UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
Number 2 - "I Want You Back" / "Anytime At All" (RCA 108) - 1981 [by Kate Robbins and Beyond]
- "Run Wild" / "Cassie's Song" (RCA 145) - 1981 [by Kate Robbins and Beyond]
- "The Real Me" / "Photo Fit" (RCA 309) - 1983 [by Kate Robbins]
- "That First Love" / "That First Love [instrumental]" / "When You Go" (Bright BULB 6) - 1983 [by Kate Robbins]
- "If You Wanna Help Somebody" / "Say Anything You Want" (Bright BULB 11) - 1988 [by Kate Robbins]
Albums
- Kate Robbins (RCA LP 6013) - 1981 [by Kate Robbins and Beyond]
- Songs from the Pool (Double Art) - 2008 [by Kate Robbins]
- Soho Nights (International Artists Management) - 2010 [by Kate Robbins]