Katy Carmichael

Early life

Born and brought up in Liverpool, Merseyside, as the daughter of two architects, Carmichael attended Gateacre Community Comprehensive School. She did her A-levels at Liverpool College, Mossley Hill, Liverpool.

After six seasons with the National Youth Theatre, she studied for a drama, film and television degree, at Bristol University with peers Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes, Myfanwy Moore, and had a five-year relationship with the then-unknown drama student David Walliams.

Career

Her first professional acting role at the age of 18 was Connie in the Liverpool sitcom Bread, which she filmed during her university studies. Early in her career, she teamed up with lifelong friend, future Spaced star and writer Jessica Hynes, in a comedy double-act called The Liz Hurleys. After leaving university, she began a TV career with the 1950s Liverpool drama And The Beat Goes On (1994), the Galton and Simpson series with Paul Merton, Wing and a Prayer, Death Of A Salesman, and Dennis Potter's Karaoke / Cold Lazarus. She played DC Jo McMullen in Liverpool 1.

Carmichael reunited with friends Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg to play Twist Morgan in the BAFTA nominated Channel 4 sitcom Spaced. The sitcom lasted for two series. The three also previously appeared together in the short-lived sketch show Six Pairs of Pants (1995).

In 2001, Carmichael starred in her first film, Dead Babies, based on the novel by Martin Amis. She also appeared in Kenneth Branagh's comedy film In the Bleak Midwinter as mad puppetwoman and played the female lead Jane Wells in the period fantasy drama The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells. A variety of roles in comedy and drama followed; Hex, Scarlett, One Foot in the Grave, Clocking Off, Cutting It. In 2002, she landed the role of florist Lucy Richards in Coronation Street and was involved in the award-winning Peter Barlow bigamy storyline for two years. She went on to play Melissa Ryan (sister of headteacher Rachel Mason) school drama Waterloo Road (2007). Carmichael played the mother in Danny Stack's short supernatural thriller Origin (2010). In 2014, she played Helen the down-trodden housewife in Jimmy Mc Govern's series Moving On for the BBC and was Hayley Blake, Connie Beauchamp's nemesis in Casualty (2014–15). She plays Clarity Winlove in The Living and The Dead (2015).

On stage, she played opposite Steven Berkoff in his 3 hander Sturm and Drang and Brighton Beach Scumbags at the Riverside Studios (1995), Yseult -Whitehands with Kneehigh Theatres's international hit Tristan and Yseult (2005–06) (Sydney Festival, USA). Work at other theatres includes seasons at The Royal Exchange Theatre, The Liverpool Everyman, The Gate, and The Bristol Old Vic, where she met her future husband actor Tristan Sturrock in a production of The Beaux Stratagem.

In 2010, they set up Bristol based Theatre Damfino together. She has directed the company's projects to date including Mayday Mayday (Bristol Old Vic 2012) which went on to win the International Fringe Review award in Edinburgh 2012 and was selected to play at St Ann's Warehouse New York and Spoleto festival USA (2013). Mayday Mayday is now an award winning drama documentary (afternoon play Radio 4 TX 1 May 2015).

Carmichael collaborated with Bib-gourmand winning chef Matt Williamson and Guardian food writer Claire Thomson to create the food-theatre show The Table Of Delights, a theatrical tasting in five acts (Bristol Old Vic, 2013-2014) that premiered at The Print Room at The Old Coronet in London (2015).

Most recently, Carmichael starred in a new episode of Moving On as Helen in the Beneficiary in March 2016.

Personal life

Carmichael has been married to actor Tristan Sturrock since 2005. They have three children together: a son in born in 2004, a daughter born in 2006, and a second daughter born in 2010.