Nicole Faraday

Early life

Faraday was born in Germany on Wednesday, 28 July 1976, to British parents. Her father, a consultant doctor, was a medical officer in the Royal Air Force working on a British base in Germany at the time of her birth. The family later moved back to her mother's home town of Swanage in Dorset. Nicole attended Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth, Clayesmore School in Blandford Forum, Dorset, and went on to train in musical theatre at the Guildford School of Acting.

Acting roles

In 2001, she played a prostitute in the last episode of 'Orrible, alongside Johnny Vaughan and Ricky Grover. From 2002–2003 Faraday was a principal cast member of both ITV's Bad Girls and the BBC's Casualty. Faraday's most recent credits include recurring character Veronica in Emmerdale, The Bill, ITV's Kingdom and Doctors for the BBC. She also stars opposite Vinnie Jones, as his wife, Kim Brookes, in the 2016 vigilante thriller Kill Kane.

Bad Girls

In Bad Girls, she played prison inmate Snowball Merriman in series 4 and 5; she played a different character, Shell Dockley, in the West End stage musical version at London's Garrick Theatre. This role was played (as a non-musical part) in series 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the TV series by Debra Stephenson. Faraday and Stephenson bear a strong physical resemblance and their characters in Bad Girls were similarly styled. The script for Bad Girls acknowledged this; when the character of Shell returned to the TV series for several episodes in series 5 (after being recaptured having escaped from prison and spending some time on the run in Europe), Shell offers up a comment on Snowball: "Cheeky slag! Swanning about, nicking my look. Who does she think she is? Me?!"

Theatre

In October 2006, Faraday won a prestigious TMA Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical for her portrayal of Shell in the musical's original run at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. She was subsequently nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical at the West End Whatsonstage.com Awards 2007/8. Other notable theatre credits include An Audience with the Mafia at the Apollo Theatre, and the role of Eva Cassidy in three UK national tours of Over the Rainbow.

Nicole appeared as the Wicked Queen in the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park Theatre, from 12 December 2008 to 11 January 2009, alongside Stefan Booth and Niamh Perry from BBC's I'd Do Anything. She repeated this role at The Place theatre, Oakengates in Telford, in the pantomime Snow White, from 8 December 2015 to 3 January 2016, alongside Jeremy Edwards and Amy Reader. She sang solo with Frank Renton's Concert Brass on 10 December 2009 and again in December 2012 at the Royal Albert Hall at a charity Concert with the Stars for TV Times in aid of Leukaemia Research. She regularly performs her own cabaret at venues, such as Pizza on the Park, now known as The Pheasantry.

She has twice appeared as a guest star in best friend Dianne Pilkington's cabarets at Lauderdale House in 2005 and 20 February 2011, singing 'Who Will Love Me As I Am' and 'It's Never That Easy/I've Been Here Before' respectively. She sings this duet on Dianne's debut album Little Stories. She can also be heard on the West End cast album of Bad Girls: The Musical. In 2017, she will also feature in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Pantomime at the Palace Theatre.