A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Lesley Sharp

 

Lesley-Anne Sharp was actually born on the 3rd of April 1960 in Manchester, but appearing on the BBC show 'Who Do You Think You Are', it was revealed that her mother, Elsie Makinson, had had an affair with a married man, Norman Patient, a tram driver in Manchester who was born in 1909 in Chorlton. It was a man she was working for but he was married and had children. "She decided it would be for the best if the baby was given up for adoption, but she breastfed me up until the moment she had to give me up." So Lesley was adopted at just six weeks old and was brought up in Formby by Roberta and Jack Sharp. Her adoptive mum suffered throughout her childhood with depression and died of cancer when Lesley was 15 leaving her with just her adopted father, Jack. Lesley was particularly close to her adoptive father, who she worshipped, and it was him who encouraged her to follow a career in acting. She remembers watching Dick Emery on TV with silly hair and wigs, pretending to be women, or vicars, or skinheads and it gave her the idea about pretending to be different people. She says, "I think there are some people who have those childhoods that are really bad and so what happens is that they find an escape through pretending to be other people. Or there are children who look around at what's going on and don't quite fit in. I think that's the kind of kid I was. It wasn't high drama, it wasn't terrible. It was just thinking I didn't want to be invisible." Her dad was chief collector of taxes and initially wasn't keen on his daughter becoming an actor. Lesley explains, "Given his profession, he had come across many sorry tales of people who claimed to be actors and in fact owed the Inland Revenue large amounts of money." Mr Sharp wanted Lesley to be a civil servant, a profession she duly tried for a year or so when she failed to get into drama school first time around. Attending Formby High School comprehensive, she also attended the local drama group at the Formby theatre club run by Tina Gibb who encouraged her, believed in her and took her ambitions very seriously. It was her belief that got her to drama school. Aged 18 she went to London, which was a magical place of possibility even if she was pushing pens and shuffling papers for the Department of Education and Science at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Here she attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in the class of 1982, the year she appeared in 'Top Girls' at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Her screen debut was as Mariane in the televised adaptation of Moliere's play with Antony Sher in the title role of Tartuffe, 'Tartuffe, or The Imposter' (1983). Next came Alan Clarke's 'Rita, Sue and Bob Too' (1986) playing Bob's wife, Michelle, but it was in another Clarke-directed project at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 'Road' (1986) that she says launched her career, playing Clare/Louise."Everyone in the show seemed to take off from there." She played Valerie in the filmed version of Jim Cartwright's first successful stageplay 'Road' (1987).

with Philip Glenister and Chrisine Tremarco in 'Clocking Off'

Further film appearances included supporting roles in 'The Rachel Papers' (1989) and 'Close My Eyes' (1991) with Alan Rickman, establishing herself as a talented actress with social realist roles in 'Mike Leigh's 'Naked' (1993) and Jimmy McGovern's 'Priest' (1994) further raising her profile. By the time she was in 'Prime Suspect 4: The Lost Child' (1995) and 'The Full Monty' (1997) she had become a well-known performer in Britain. Although she has appeared in a variety of films throughout her career, she is probably best known by television audiences. Having appeared in the British comedy drama series 'Frank Stubbs Promotes' (1993-94), alongside Timothy Spall, by the late 1990s, she was being offered lead roles in numerous well-written drama series such as 'Common As Muck' (1997), about the trials and tribulations of a group of binmen which was followed by 'Playing The Field' (1998–2002), a drama about a female football team which ran for five series. Having had supporting parts in the TV movie 'Great Expectation' (1999), as Mrs Joe, 'Daylight Robbery' (1999) and in 'Nature Boy' (2000) as Martha Tyler, she landed the role of Trudy Graham in the BAFTA award winning 'Clocking Off' (2000–2003). Next she had a BAFTA nomination for 'Bob & Rose' (2001) opposite Alan Davies. Further film roles in 'From Hell' (2001), starring Johnny Depp, and Cheeky (1993) preceded another television drama written by Russell T. Davies. In 'The Second Coming' (2003) she was 'the woman who killed God' in the form of Stephen Baxter, as played by Christopher Eccleston. She then worked again with Mike Leigh in 'Vera Drake' (2004) which was followed by one-off television dramas including 'Planespotting' (2005), 'Born with Two Mothers' (2005) and 'Our Hidden Lives' (2005). The same year, she played the clairvoyant lead role of Alison Mundy in ITV's supernatural drama series 'Afterlife' (2015-16). Her performance was highly praised and she was nominated for several awards. After a ten-year break from stagework, in October 2005 she returned to the theatre as Emma in 'The God of Hell' and concentrated on theatrical work for the next few years. before returning to TV in 2008 in the three-part drama 'The Chuldren'. Later in 2008, she worked with Russell T. Davies for a third time when she played Sky Silvestry in the Doctor Who episode 'Midnight'.

with Surranne Jones in 'Scott & Bailey'

 

In early 2009 she played Petronella van Daan in the BBC's version of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and then   played Paddy Considine's wife Joan Hunter in the Channel 4 acclaimed drama series 'Red Riding - The Year of Our Lord 1980'. Between 2011 and 2016, she co-starred as Janet Scott in ITV's crime drama series 'Scott & Bailey' where she appeared alongside her husband, the actor and playwright Nicholas Gleaves, the couple had met in the early nineties when they were both up-and-coming actors and married in 1994. She has said the series was something of a paradigm shift when it came to portraying women at work, which she is immensely proud of. "Rather than showing women at odds because they were of different generations or sexually in competition, they went to work, really loved their jobs and got on as colleagues. They had domestic stuff going on, but they weren’t falling apart. Strangely, that’s something that’s not portrayed very often on television." In May 2012 she starred in the Sky1 comedy series 'Starlings' as Jan Starling and then in 2015 she played the part of Mary, the daughter of Petunia Howe, in the three-part BBC series adaptation of John Lanchester's novel 'Capital' . This was followed by the role of Lucy Cannonbury in the TV crime drama series 'Paranoid' (2016). Her latest noteable appearances were in 'Living the Dream' (2017-19) and 'Before We Die' (2021-23).
With her adopted parents from Edinburgh, she spent every summer back in the Scottish capital visiting friends and family. She always supports Scotland against England in a football match and is a Hearts fan, like both her parents. She has two sons, Zachary born October 1994 and Gabriel born March 12, 1998 with husband Nicholas.