As a child she attended The Anna Scher Children’s Theatre in Islington which led her to be cast in a variety of film and television productions from an early age. Her closest friend at the theatre school was Linda Robson and both had also previously attended the same primary school. Robson is also well recognised for her role in Birds of a Feather. Quirke recalled how she became involved with the drama group when she was interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs; “It wasn’t a drama school, you went there after school twice a week, Monday and Wednesday, and as we got older we’d go on Friday which was the professional group. It was fun and it wasn’t about children wanting to be famous or be on telly. It was a club and if you happened to get a job on television from that then so be it.[1]”
Quirke’s earliest role was as Molly in the Children’s Film Foundation science fiction short Junket 89 (1970) and this was followed by her first television role as a child arsonist in the Dixon of Dock Green episode 'Two Children' (9th January 1971). “The story was that there was myself and my younger sister, a little girl of about six or seven. I set fire to the house thinking that if I save my little sister my mum would love me more… but it went wrong and the fire went out of control.[2]” This role was followed by an appearance in fellow BBC police show Softly Softly: Task Force in another juvenile role in the episode 'Copper Wine' (1st December 1971).
You Must Be Joking was a Thames Television comedy sketch show for children which utilised many young actors from the Anna Scher Children’s Theatre including Quirke. The series was produced by Roger Price, who also oversaw The Tomorrow People, which explains the presence of Mike Holoway and the band Flintlock in the episodes as well. Quirke appeared in several episodes between 1975 and 1976. Following her appearance in Beasts Quirke was given the chance to present her own comedy and entertainment series entitled Pauline’s Quirke’s (15th November – 20th December 1976). Roger Price was in the producer’s seat again and Flintlock and Mike Holloway kept popping in to join in the fun. The series was viewed as controversial at the time which Quirke felt was down to snobbery within the TV industry; 'I’ve got a strong London accent and I was presenting a children’ show. At that time there was Blue Peter on the BBC and there was Magpie on ITV, so it was fairly unusual for someone with a strong London accent to be presenting a children’s programme.[5]'
Next for Quirke was three episodes of the of the long-running BBC Schools programme Television Club playing the role of Pud in the storyline 'A Place Like Home'; 'Errol' (22nd February 1977), 'Pud' (8th March 1977) and 'Lydia' (26th April 1977). Having appeared in a BBC Schools programme earlier in the day Quirke would also feature in the BBC’s evening schedule with her second appearance in a BBC Play for Today, though her role as Helen in 'The Country Party' (26 April 1977) is much smaller than her debut in the drama anthology series. Her next role with the BBC was as Pearl in two episodes of the BBC period drama The Duchess of Duke Street;'Shadows' (5th November 1977) and 'Blossom Time' (10th December 1977).
The Play for Today instalment 'Eleanor' (12th December 1974), written by William Trevor, saw her undertake the role of the eponymous character, a withdrawn and bullied school girl, the first of many such characters she would portray on television. She could later be seen as a student in the Tomorrow People adventure “'he Blue and The Green' (4th – 25th February 1975). Her other roles for the year includes 'Optical Illusion' (1st October 1975), an episode of the children’s horror anthology series Shadows, in which she featured as part of a group of youngsters accidentally locked in a spooky house overnight and the ATV single play Jenny Can’t Work Any Faster (8th December 1975). Playing the eponymous character Quirke excelled as the young autistic girl who is given a job at her father’s business to prevent her from becoming withdrawn and isolated. It is likely that her role in Jenny led to be her been cast as in Beasts as Noreen Beale due to the shared traits of each role and both productions being produced by Nicholas Palmer. The play was well received with The Stage commenting “Mr Cooke’s play was a disturbing, authentic yet compassionate study of a personal inferno as vividly terrifying as Gustav Dore’s highly individual vision of hell.[3]” The review also singled out Quirke’s performance for praise: “Acting honours must belong to sixteen year old Pauline Quirke for her extraordinary achievement in simulating so expertly the exact characteristics of an autistic child: a highly detailed and abjectly moving performance.[4]”
As well as TV work Quirke was also toiling away in the world of theatre. Tale of Three Cities, written by the Ethiopian playwright Gebre Asefaw, was performed at the Royal Court in December 1975. Quirke supported a cast headlined by Alan Armstrong, Jeremy Child and Peter Childs. Plays for Britain was a flagship series of productions transmitted on ITV. Quirke appears in the episode 'Sunshine in Brixton' (20th April 1976) playing the role of Marion in a script written by Brian Glover. Also featured in the cast are Jill Gascoigne in her pre-The Gentle Touch days as the mother of a teenage black youngster, Otis. Wrestler turned actor Sonny Caldinez was cast Gascoigne’s dodgy boyfriend and Quirke plays one of Otis’ classmates.
Quirke started 1978, along with her colleague Linda Robson, with a magazine show involving guest interviews and current affairs items entitled Pauline’s People with Roger Price once more in the producer’s chair. The programme was successful enough to be granted a second series the following year. Also during the same year Quirke appeared in the Crown Court case 'The Greenhouse Girls' (October 1978) as Patsy Donovan, a girl staying at a probation hostel who accuses her warder of stealing from her.
Her first role in a sitcom came with the character Carole Richards, a bridesmaid, in the London Weekend Television series Lovely Couple (7th April – 30th June 1979). The series was written by Christopher Wood, who had scripted the James Bond film Moonraker and the hugely successful Confessions series of books under the pseudonym of Timothy Lea. Quirke then returned to work for ATV with the children’s drama series The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist playing Charlotte in nine episodes of the thirteen episode series (2nd March – 1st June 1980). She then stayed in the Victorian era for her film role as a prostitute in the David Lynch film The Elephant Man (1980). Her other television appearance for the year was in the Play for Today production 'Name for the Day' (16th December 1980) playing the role of Ann. The drama followed the mental illness of a man who enters hospital after a mental breakdown. Quirke’s next appearance was in another BBC Play for Today as Tessa in 'Baby Talk' (14th April 1981).
Her final appearance in a Play for Today production was a supporting role as a supermarket checkout girl (echoes of 'Special Offer') in 'Life After Death' (2nd February 1982). She was then cast as Eliza in the 1982 BBC adaptation of E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Treasure Seekers (6th January – 10th February 1982). Quirke also gained a role in the CBS crime and mystery series QED[6] which starred Sam Waterson as Quentin Everett Deverill, an American professor, solving curious cases in Edwardian England. Filmed in the UK the short lived series made good use of British acting talent including Julian Glover as Deverill’s arch nemesis Doctor Stefan Kilkiss. Quirke appears in the fifth episode, 'To Catch a Ghost' (20th April 1982), playing the character Jane. Her next film role was in the Alan Bates and Julie Christie starring The Return of the Soldier (1982).Quirke has a small role as a young woman searching a hospital.
Quirke had already had two guest roles in the two single episodes of the medical soap opera Angels during 1976 and 1980 before she was cast in the regular role of Nurse Vicky Smith. The character would appear in over 50 episodes between September 1982 and December 1983. After this Quirke was then off our screens for a few years. She returned in 1986 playing a cleaner in 'Who’s Ya Uncle Shelley' (20th November 1986), an episode of the comedy series Girls on Top. The following year she could be seen as Maggy in an epic length film adaptation of Dicken’s Little Dorrit (1987) headlined by Derek Jacobi. Next was a role in the Rockcliffe’s Babies episode 'Hearts and Flowers' (11th March 1988) and the same year she made another cinema appearance with the role of Doreen in Distant Voices Still Lives (1988).
This was followed by more steady work for Quirke, playing Veronica in the third and fourth seasons of Shine on Harvey Moon during 1984 and 1985. She also returned for the fifth season, broadcast 1995, appearing in the first two episodes. The series was written and created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran who would also create Birds of a Feather and it was thanks to appearing in Harvey Moon that Quirke and Robson were offered roles in the sitcom. Quirke explained the train of events on her episode of Desert Island Discs; “Linda was already doing Shine on Harvey Moon and they’d already done two series and I came in for the third series… They saw Linda and I working together really well and bouncing off each other. And from that they wanted to do another idea with Linda and myself. I believe Birds of a Feather came from an overheard conversation that Maurice heard of these two women. It was Christmas and they’d gone to have Christmas lunch at this posh hotel. He heard these two women talking and from what he gathered from their conversation was that they were married to two villains who taken the chance to coming back to England for Christmas. And that’s how they originally got the idea for Birds.[7]”
Next was a guest role in the Casualty episode 'Living Memories' (21st October 1988) playing the role of Mary Taylor. Next came the one that the general public still readily identify her with as Sharon Theodopolopodous in the sitcom Birds of a Feather, which ran from 1989 to 1998 on BBC TV. Quirke’s real-life friend Linda Robson played her sister, Tracey Stubbs, who are forced to live together following their husbands imprisonment. Such was the popularity of the characters[8] that they were asked to appear in the 1996 Royal Variety Performance performing a small sketch. In 1990 the first ever British Comedy Awards were announced and presented during December. Quirke won the television comedy newcomer award, beating Vic Reeves, Imelda Staunton and Angus Deayton, for her role in Birds of a Feather.
The mystery thriller The Sculptress (24th February – 3rd March 1996) would reinvigorate Quirke’s career as a dramatic actress and provide her with one of her career signature roles. Based on the 1993 novel by Minette Walters the series cast Quirke as the central character Olive Martin, a twenty two stone morbidly obese woman who was imprisoned for life after killing and dismembering her mother and sister. Martin is befriended by a journalist who comes to suspect she is innocent though the truth is much more complicated. In many ways the role harks back to her damaged outsider roles of earlier years, but having spent so much time in sitcoms the audience had forgotten how good a dramatic actor she could be. For the role Quirke had to undergo extensive make up donning a specially cast and made body suit which was understandably physically demanding.
Her other roles during 1996 included the short film Waiting For Giro (1996). However, The Sculptress had added vigour to her career and she was able to shake off the shadow cast by the role of Sharon from Birds of a Feather and extend her drama CV in the coming years. The first sign of this resurgence was her casting as Sonia Williamson, opposite Ray Winstone as her husband Woody, in the intense single drama Our Boy (15th February 1998). Sonia and Woody lose their only son when he is killed in a hit and run accident and as the strain of the death starts to destroy their marriage new information comes to light about the real culprit behind the hit and run. Winstone won the Royal Television Award for Best Male Actor for his work as Woody whilst Quirke won the TV Quick best actress award for her role. More drama roles followed with Quirke undertaking the part of Madame Murielle in starry Carlton Television production of The Canterville Ghost (1997) and the black comedy Deadly Summer (30th November 1997) which cast her alongside Robson Green, Francesca Annis and Bob Peck.
The mystery thriller The Sculptress (24th February – 3rd March 1996) would reinvigorate Quirke’s career as a dramatic actress and provide her with one of her career signature roles. Based on the 1993 novel by Minette Walters the series cast Quirke as the central character Olive Martin, a twenty two stone morbidly obese woman who was imprisoned for life after killing and dismembering her mother and sister. Martin is befriended by a journalist who comes to suspect she is innocent though the truth is much more complicated. In many ways the role harks back to her damaged outsider roles of earlier years, but having spent so much time in sitcoms the audience had forgotten how good a dramatic actor she could be. For the role Quirke had to undergo extensive make up donning a specially cast and made body suit which was understandably physically demanding.
Quirke was given her own prime time BBC crime drama vehicle when she undertook the title role of Maisie Rain, a police detective inspector with a no nonsense approach. Two seasons comprising of twelve episodes where broadcast between July 1998 and July 1999. Quirke wasn’t adverse to still taking on comedy roles despite her new found dramatic popularity. Real Women (26th February – 12th March 1998) was a feel good comedy drama which saw five childhood friends reunited for a hen night before one of them gets married. Co-starring alongside Michelle Collins and Frances Barber Quirke essayed the role of Mandy Evans. The series was successful enough to get to a second season (19th October – 9th November 1999) the following year. Seasonal one off drama Last Christmas (22nd December 1999) reunited Quirke with her Our Boy co-star Ray Winstone for a feel good fantasy drama about the dead father of a young boy visiting him as an angel. Quirke played the boy’s mum, Gwen. Daniel Radcliffe was the young David Copperfield (25th and 26th December 1999) for a costume drama festive treat from the BBC. Quirke was cast as Peggotty amongst a cast of talent that included Trevor Eve, Ian McKellen, Zoe Wannamaker and many others.
Office Gossip (2nd February – 9th March 2001) was a forgettable middle of the road comedy series from the BBC which featured Quirke in the role of Jo. The series began with a satisfying six million viewers, but the ratings quickly dropped. However, Quirke was nominated for the Most Popular Comedy Performer at the National Television Awards due to her appearance in the series. Next was Arthur’s Dyke (2001) a one off comedy drama which saw Quirke portraying Janet, a fortysomething wife and mother undergoing a mid-life crisis, who joins a group of three men as they set off on a marathon walk. Quirke was then cast as Felia Siderova, a Latvian woman whose husband and child are missing, in 'The Glorious Butranekh' (3rd November 2001), an episode of the Reeves and Mortimer version of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Quirke also appeared in the low budget British comedy film Redemption Road (2001) amongst a cast filled with familiar thespians such as Mark Benton, Neil Maskell and Annette Badland.
Her next role came in the crime anthology series Murder in Mind which again saw Quirke drawing upon her darker side to play another outsider character. 'Passion' (5th January 2002) opened the second season of the series with Quirke portraying Jane Saunders, a call centre worker who is obsessed with her boss Stephen Croft, played by Mark Womack. This leads her to kill the woman she suspects Croft of having an affair with and then framing his wife for the crime. Quirke plays the withdrawn and lonely figure of Saunders with aplomb and is absolutely terrifying when she is pushed over the edge.
Quirke’s main television role for the start of the new millennium was as Faith in the cosy Sunday evening BBC drama series Down To Earth (2000 – 2005). Faith is the wife of Brian, played by Warren Clarke, who have a holiday home in Devon which offers breaks to disadvantaged children. Quirke and Clarke headlined the series for three seasons before they left for pastures new and were replaced by Denise Welch and Ricky Tomlinson for a further two seasons of stories. This highlight was followed by a downturn in quality with the BBC series Being April (20th June – 1st August 2002) which had Quirke taking on the lead role of April, a woman with three children from three different marriages. Adding to the contrivance her former husband’s span the politically correct spectrum – a straight guy, a gay guy and an Indian guy – to try and give zest to the comedy drama. The programme was poorly received and lasted one season of six episodes.
Quirke was cast as Dixon in the BBC’s four-part period drama North and South during 2004 which was adapted from the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. She also made her first of two appearances within a year in The Bill. Her first role was as Lesley Palmer in a block of episodes transmitted 14th – 29th September 2005 and this was followed with the role of Cath Wilson in two episodes (19th and 20th October 2005). The following year saw her take the role of the tyrannical and bullying Colleen McCabe, the titular character in the one-off drama The Thieving Headmistress (6th June 2006). The same year also saw Quirke’s second guest appearance in an episode of Casualty which came eight years since her first appearance. Quirke played Jackie Rogers in the episode 'No Place Like…' (2nd December 2006). Cold Blood 2 (5th March 2007) featured Matthew Kelly as the serial killer Brian Wicklow with Jemma Redgrave, John Hannah and Pauline Quirke as the policemen trying to solve where Wicklow’s last victim’s body is lying. A final sequel followed during June 2007.
Off screen Quirke launched her own academy for performing arts for children during September 2007. The Pauline Quirke Academy for Performing Arts which has now expanded into nearly two hundred towns and cities across the UK as of 2019. The centres do not provided standard mainstream education and instead focus on the arts. After the launch of her academy chain Quirke was back in a police uniform for the BBC series Missing, which followed the exploits of a missing person’s police unit led by Quirke as DS Mary Jane Croft. The first season of five episodes (16th March – 20th March 2009) was followed by a second season of ten episodes (15th March – 26th March 2010). Next was Needles (2010), a low budget British horror film, which sees Britain in the grip of a mystery epidemic. A vaccine is being developed and to quicken the process pupils at a girl’s school in Kent are given the medication as guinea pigs which leads to disastrous consequences… Quirke played the role of Jaqueline Ledley. She followed this with another role in a horror film, The Perfect Burger (2010).
On television Quirke joined the soap opera treadmill with the role of Hazel Rhodes in Emmerdale. She started in May 2010 and stayed until January 2012 clocking up appearances in over 200 episodes of the rural soap opera. Post-Emmerdale Quirke took a role in the short film Grace’s Story (2013) before being cast as Susan Wright in the first season of the successfully crime drama Broadchurch (7th August – 25th September 2013). The character then returned for two episodes of the second season (25th March and 1st April 2015). Following this was the role of Paula in the ten part Sky comedy series You, Me and the Apocalypse (30th September – 2nd December 2015). Her most recent appearance has her back in the role of Sharon in a new version of Birds of Feather which has switched channels from BBC One to ITV.
Quirke married television producer Steve Sheen in August 1996, who has credits including the comedy drama Arthur’s Dyke and the relaunched Birds of a Feather both of which star Quirke, and they have two children together; Emily, born in 1985, and Charlie, who arrived in 1994. Charlie is also an actor who has appeared in episodes of Casualty and the relaunched Birds of a Feather alongside his mother. In 2022 Quirke was awarded an MBE for services to young people, the entertainment industry and charity.
[1] Pauline Quirke interviewed by
Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs, 5th
May 1996
[2] Pauline Quirke interviewed by Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs, 5th May 1996
[3] “A Disturbing, Memorable Play” by Geoffrey Wren, The Stage, Thursday 11th December 1975, page 17
[4] “A Disturbing, Memorable Play” by Geoffrey Wren, The Stage, Thursday 11th December 1975, page 17
[5] Pauline Quirke interviewed by Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs, 5th May 1996
[6] Not the BBC documentary programme
[7] Pauline Quirke interviewed by Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs, 5th May 1996
[8] At its peak the series was attracting over 13 million viewers
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