Biography

Catherine Tate, born Catherine Ford, is an English comedian, actress, and writer, best known for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show, which was nominated for four BAFTAs including Best Comedy Performance.

Born in Bloomsbury, London, in 1968, she was known at school as something of a rebel, with a keen sense of humour. Thus it was no surprise that one of her most famous sketch-show characters, Lauren, should have been at least partially based on her former self. After taking A-Levels in Salesian College, Battersea, she left school without sitting her A Levels, and finally studied art and drama at The Central School of Speech and Drama having tried for four years to gain entry.

Early work involved appearances in Casualty and The Bill, and minor roles in The Harry Hill Show. In 1998, she wrote and starred in Barking, a late-night sketch show broadcast on Channel 4 that featured the then unknown comedy actors Mackenzie Crook, David Walliams, and Peter Kay, with whom she had formerly appeared on That Peter Kay Thing.

What's more, she played the part of Kate in the unaired pilot of sitcom Not Going Out, featuring Lee Mack, with whom she collaborated on a range of sketch shows at the Edinburgh Fringe. She was then offered a part in Wild West, alongside Dawn French, an idol of hers, who would comment that "Catherine Tate is far too talented and she must be destroyed."

This led the BBC to take, by her own admission, something of a gamble in offering the then relative unknown her own sketch show, The Catherine Tate Show. However, it soon proved a huge success, with many of her characters -- disaffected teenager Lauren, foul-mouthed grandma Joanne 'Nan' Taylor -- passing into popular folklore, with a gigantic following. Lauren's catchphrases 'Am I covered' and 'Are you disrespecting my family?' are immensely famous to this day. She won a British Comedy Award for best newcomer in 2004, was nominated for an International Emmy Award, and 7 BAFTA awards. She was a guest star at the 77th Royal Variety Performance and appeared in the guise of Lauren Cooper. During the sketch, Tate looked up and asked the queen, 'Is one bovvered? Is one's face bovvered?', and her co-star Niky Wardley, in character as Liese, remarked, 'That old man sitting next to her has fallen asleep'. In 2019 it was announced that a new movie, Nan The Movie, would be released in 2020, telling the backstory of the Nan character.

A hugely versatile actor, Tate has played roles in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, as well as featuring alongside David Tennant as the doctor's companion Donna Noble in series 4 (2008) of Doctor Who. Moreover, she appeared in the 2006 film comedies Starter For Ten, Sixty Six, and Scenes Of A Sexual Nature.Latterly she starred as Nellie Bertram in the US version of The Office and provided the voice of Magica de Spell in Disney's DuckTales.