Rebecca Front

Career

Front became involved in comedy while at St Hugh's College, Oxford. She toured with the Oxford Theatre Group in 1984, taking part in the revue Stop the Weak. The tour played in Oxford itself; the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill, Edinburgh, Salisbury and Romsey. In 1985, Front teamed up with Sioned Wiliam and Jon Magnusson to take the show The Bobo Girls go BOO to Edinburgh. She made a short promotional video on energy conservation with Michael Simkins in the late 1980s.

Front achieved a higher profile as a result of her work with Stewart Lee and Richard Herring on the radio shows Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World and On the Hour, and the television and radio series Fist of Fun. She went on to form a close professional association with Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Doon Mackichan and Steve Coogan, who all transferred with Front to The Day Today, the television version of On the Hour. Completing The Day Today were Patrick Marber, who was part of the 1984 Oxford University revue with Front and David Schneider, who took part in the 1985 revue. This cast continued to contribute to the Alan Partridge comedy canon throughout the 1990s.

In recent years Front has also become a fixture on comedy panel shows on British television and radio including The News Quiz, Have I Got News for You and If I Ruled The World. She has also had minor roles in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Absolute Power and Absolutely Fabulous and she has also played straight acting roles in television drama, including You Can Choose Your Friends, The Rotters' Club, Kavanagh QC, Lewis and Jonathan Creek.

In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. From 2006, she has written columns for The Guardian. In 2007, she guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio drama The Mind's Eye.

Since 2007

Front had a dramatic recurring role as Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent on Lewis, the successor to Inspector Morse on ITV.

In 2009 and 2012, respectively, she played Nicola Murray MP, Secretary of State for Citizenship and Social Affairs and in charge of the dysfunctional 'DoSAC', and later, leader of the opposition, in the third and fourth series of political satire The Thick of It. Front featured in the 2010 BBC comedy series Grandma's House playing the part of Tanya Simon Amstell's mother, and Just William, as the mother of William Brown and also starred in the 2011 live-action 3D family comedy film Horrid Henry: The Movie as Henry's headmistress, Miss Oddbod.

In 2012 Front starred as the psychiatrist in the Sky Arts sketch series "Psychobitches", where Front's character offers therapy to notable women of history and the present day, including Mary Shelley, Enid Blyton, Eva Braun, Mary Pickford, Edith Piaf, and Anna Nicole Smith. The series aired on the British television channel Sky Arts 1. The first episode of a second series will be broadcast on 25 November 2014.

In 2013, Front starred in the new Sky Living comedy The Spa, playing the role of Alison Crabbe. She plays Cox in The Wrong Mans, a six-part comedy-thriller for BBC Two. The premiere was on 24 September 2013. She reprised this role in December 2014 for a special two-parter. She narrated Fox Wars which was broadcast on 22 October 2013.

In December 2013, Sky Atlantic aired a new comedy series called Little Cracker. The second programme in the series was an autobiographical story written by Front and her brother Jeremy. It concerns the time she witnessed the near-drowning of her father in a lake; that incident was closely followed by the death of her grandfather. The proximity of these two experiences caused Front considerable personal anguish. Front was eleven years old at the time and, because of the trauma she suffered, she went through a period of not wanting to attend school. The programme included a comedic treatment of this time in her life, followed by Front and her brother explaining the background to the story, and how they came to write and dramatise it. In the programme, Front was played by Lucy Hutchinson, and her father was played by the actor Richard Lumsden. Samantha Spiro played her mother and Front played her headmistress Miss Dyson. Front's school friend character, Karen was played by Imogen Front.

For their Christmas season, the BBC commissioned Death Comes to Pemberley, a three-part British television drama based on characters created by Jane Austen in her novel Pride and Prejudice. The first episode aired on BBC One at 8.15pm on Boxing Day 2013, was based on the best selling novel by P. D. James, the story returns to the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and involves its characters in a new tale of murder and emotional mayhem. Front played the part of Mrs Bennet.

In January 2014, Front appeared in the Midsomer Murders episode "Let Us Prey", about a serial killer who uses medieval torture methods to dispatch their victims.

Front also appeared in the BBC series Outnumbered, playing the headmistress at Karen's school in early 2014.

Front currently portrays Fiona in the BBC Radio 4 series Love in Recovery. She also stars in the sitcom "Up the Women" as Helen Bute, the antagonist. This is a part she played for three episodes in mid 2013 and a six episode series in 2015.

Since 2014, she has narrated the Channel 4 series The Supervet.

On 5 June 2015, the BBC announced Front would be guest starring in the ninth series of Doctor Who. She appeared in "The Zygon Invasion", directed by Daniel Nettheim.

Rebecca currently plays Synth Vera in the Channel 4 series Humans. In 2017, she co-wrote and appeared in the sitcom "Shush!" on BBC Radio 4, a sitcom set in a library.

Personal life

Front was born in Stoke Newington, London, to Sheila and Charles Front. Her mother wrote children's books, which her father illustrated. Her father also designed the title-logo on the cover of the Beatles' album Rubber Soul. She is married, with two children, Oliver Jack (born 24 November 1998) and Matilda "Tilly" Amy (born 28 April 2001). Her father was Jewish and her mother was of Jewish and Welsh descent (her maternal grandmother was Welsh). Front was brought up in Reform Judaism.

Her brother is writer and comic actor Jeremy Front and the two siblings have collaborated on writing and performance projects – the most recent is a series of spoof documentaries entitled Incredible Women for Radio 4. Front's book Curious: True Stories and Loose Connections (published 2014) is a collection of autobiographical stories.