Anna Chancellor

  • Actor

Press clippings

Rain Dogs review

Daisy May Cooper is magnificent in this bleak, beautiful comedy drama - which skewers the grotesque realities of class and sex inequality like nothing else.

Chitra Ramaswamy, The Guardian, 4th April 2023

Anna Chancellor joins Terry Pratchett adaptation

Chancellor said, "It's been so exciting to join such a wonderfully creative team - from writer Simon Allen to the stunning production design and a truly talented group of actors."

Deadline, 19th November 2019

One Red Nose Day and a Wedding review

Twenty-five years after the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis's well-intentioned short sequel for Comic Relief gave rise to no laughs but some genuine pathos.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 15th March 2019

Benjamin review - Amstell's hilarious romance

As a young film-maker's career teeters on the brink of disaster, a surprise love affair forces him to rethink the path to happiness.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 13th March 2019

Review: Why ITV2's Timewasters is worth your time.

With the ability to transport its characters to any time in the past or future, Timewasters has endless possibilities, and its black central cast allows for a new, interesting spin on the time travel genre.

Luke, The Custard TV, 11th March 2019

Four Weddings And A Funeral cast reunite for Red Nose Day

The cast of Four Weddings And A Funeral are reuniting to make a new short film to be shown on Red Nose Day 2019.

British Comedy Guide, 6th December 2018

Colin Morgan to star in Simon Amstell's film

Merlin actor Colin Morgan will star in Benjamin, the new film written and directed by Simon Amstell.

British Comedy Guide, 16th October 2017

A repeat for Steve Pemberton's glorious 2014 adaptation of EF Benson's comic novels about a pair of upper-class ladies engaged in elegantly acidic one-upmanship in a 1930s seaside town. Miranda Richardson is sublime as Miss Elizabeth Mapp (sporting, as Spike Milligan would say, great "English teeth, shining in the sun" - along with a sly lunacy lurking just behind the eyes), while Anna Chancellor as the snobbish Mrs Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas makes the perfect foil.

Ali Catterall, The Guardian, 15th April 2017

Flowers, which ran through the week on Channel 4, was a true hen's teeth rarity: we were witnessing, I think, the invention of a new genre. I'm just not sure quite what it was. Thorny, yes, prickly and awkward. Bleakly black too. Resoundingly human and truly funny. Above all, the singular vision of show runner (and writer and director and co-star) Will Sharpe, an Anglo-Japanese former Footlights president. What I do know is that I could have watched it all year long.

There were elements of Roald Dahl and Japanese anime, of Black Mirror and of Alan Ayckbourn, of fairytales for children who drink. Essentially the tale of a depressed writer and his savagely dysfunctional family, as the week wore on it became more forgiving. It's a sign of good drama when there's strength in depth of casting, and there were relishably chunky cameos for Angus Wright and Anna Chancellor as the true grotesques of the piece. But the family itself, the Flowers, survived near fatalities and worse to emerge, if not triumphant, then hugely and recognisably normal.

Olivia Colman, now forgiven the occasional misstep in The Night Manager, was back to all her charm and glory. We have grown used to seeing Colman in full-teeth mode, but she'd obviously been hiding a seventh set: no one else can hiss the accusatory "blabbermouth" while still blinding the world with a smile so wide nor so full of brittle self-doubt. Then there was Daniel Rigby as the son who bores everything but the pants off women, and Sophia Di Martino as sis Amy, the tender fulcrum around which much revolves. Above all, Julian Barratt as father Maurice, who conjures worlds of depression from just a pocketful of mumbles. The sadly salient point came on Thursday, when Deborah (Colman) attempted to reach the heart of Maurice's depression: we can fight it, she says, fight the monster together, maybe just with love. A shaggy shake of a sorrowful head. "No. Love just makes it worse." Truthfully, a week-long gem.

Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 1st May 2016

Everything you need to know about Flowers

Today Channel 4 announced details of their new dark new sitcom Flowers that partners Broadchurch's Olivia Colman and The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barratt.

Cameron K McEwan, Metro, 23rd February 2016

Share this page