Jane Horrocks

Early life

Horrocks, the youngest of three children, was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker, and John Horrocks, a sales representative.

She attended Balladen County Primary School and later trained at Oldham College and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She drew critical notice for her performance in the film Life Is Sweet (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became a name with the role of Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2016).

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

While working on Road, a play directed by Jim Cartwright, Horrocks warmed up by doing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Ethel Merman. Cartwright was so impressed with her mimicry he wrote The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for her. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1992 West End production, directed by her boyfriend Sam Mendes.

She reprised her role in the 1998 screen adaptation, Little Voice, which earned nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - Motion Picture, and the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress.

In 2000, Horrocks made the CD Further Adventures of Little Voice, again singing in the style of favourite divas. The recording includes duets with Ewan McGregor, Robbie Williams and Dean Martin. Horrocks collaborated once more with Robbie Williams the following year, for a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Things" on Williams's album Swing When You're Winning.

Career

Horrocks has appeared on stage in Ask for the Moon (Hampstead, 1986), A Collier's Friday Night (Greenwich, 1987), Valued Friends (Hampstead, 1989), and The Debutante Ball (Hampstead, 1989). She appeared in Catherine Cookson's The Fifteen Streets, alongside Sean Bean and Owen Teale in 1989, Our Own Kind (Bush, 1991), Deadly Advice (Fletcher, 1993), Cabaret (Donmar Warehouse, 1994), Macbeth (Greenwich Theatre, 1995) and Absurd Person Singular (Garrick Theatre, 2007).

Her last West End appearance was in Sweet Panic, the 2003 Stephen Poliakoff drama in which she portrayed a neurotic mother locked in a battle of wills with her disturbed son's psychologist. She starred in Richard Jones's critically acclaimed production of The Good Soul of Szechuan at the Young Vic in 2008, and was reunited with Jones in a new musical production of Annie Get Your Gun, which opened at the Young Vic in October 2009.In 2016s If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me Horrocks revisited the songs of her youth, to sing versions of tracks by the likes of Joy Division, The Smiths, Buzzcocks and The Human League at London’s Young Vic.

Horrocks's voiceovers have been used on Chicken Run (2000), Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), Corpse Bride (2005), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) and Tinker Bell (2008) (in which she was Fairy Mary; she reprises the role in the Tinker Bell sequels), and on radio as Fenchurch in the audio adaptation of Douglas Adams' science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for BBC Radio 4. She has voiced Donner in all three Robbie the Reindeer films in aid of Comic Relief.

Other television credits include Absolutely Fabulous, Victoria Wood - We'd Quite Like To Apologise, Bad Girl, Boon, Heartland, Hunting Venus, La Nonna, Leaving Home, Never Mind the Horrocks, Nightlife, Wyrd Sisters, Foxbusters, Red Dwarf, Some Kind of Life, Suffer the Little Children, The Storyteller, The Garden, Fifi & the Flowertots, Little Princess (the voice of the princess) and Welcome to the Times. She was the subject of an episode of the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2006. That year she played the title role in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, a drama about a woman elected prime minister. For 10 years, Horrocks appeared with Prunella Scales in commercials for the UK supermarket chain Tesco. She narrated BBC Two's television series The Speaker in April 2009.

Also in 2009, Horrocks took the lead in the BBC TV production Gracie!, a drama portraying the life of Gracie Fields during World War II and her relationship with the Italian-born director Monty Banks (played by Tom Hollander).

On Tuesday 14 January 2014, Horrocks appeared as a contestant in The Great Sport Relief Bake Off on BBC Two. This programme is the celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off, whose purpose is to help raise money for the charity Sport Relief, and was hosted by Jo Brand. The other contestants were: TV and radio presenter Kirsty Young, choreographer Jason Gardiner, and Olympic athlete Greg Rutherford.

In October 2014, Horrocks played Ella Khan in the London revival of East is East at Trafalgar Studios as part of Jamie Lloyd's Trafalgar Transformed season.

On 9 May 2015 she gave a reading at VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in Horse Guards Parade, London that was broadcast live on BBC1.

In 2015 she supplied the voice of the Tubby Phone in the reboot of the popular British children's television series Teletubbies.

Personal life

Horrocks lives with playwright Nick Vivian in Twickenham with their children, son Dylan and daughter Molly.

In 2011, Horrocks caused minor controversy by admitting to no longer shopping in Tesco, stating that '(t)here's always a set type of people doing their shopping ... whether it's pensioners holding everyone up or screeching kids. Or sometimes you can have rather a lot of chavs in, and that gets a bit scary.' Writers Julie Burchill and Barbara Ellen branded Horrocks snobbish and hypocritical for her comments, drawing particular attention to the fact that Horrocks had famously fronted a series of adverts for the supermarket chain in the 1990s.

Music videos

Awards and honours