Joanne Howarth

Born in 1960, Joanne's parents had just arrived in South London from Manchester where her father was the southern sales rep for a Lancashire cotton mill and her mother taught cookery. She was the first kid to join drama club at her school, where her first roles were Juana in Steinbeck's The Pearl and Puck in A Midsummer Nights Dream. She was hooked. After training at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, hot on the heels of Gary Oldman, she has gone on to work regularly in the foremost British theatre companies. Highlights are three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company including Sam Mendes' production of The Alchemist with Hugh Bonneville and David Bradley and playing Fabian to John Lithgow's Malvolio in Twelfth Night. She played Ella Khan in the 2001 revival of East is East, and Joan opposite Patrick Stewart in Bingo at The Young Vic in 2012. She was proud to honour her Welsh heritage as the powerful and fragile matriarch in the award winning The Pull of Negative Gravity which played off-Broadway in 2005. On screen Joanne played opposite Kenneth Branagh in Wallander and was directed by Michael Caton-Jones on Spooks (MI-5). She was a regular in Grange Hill, playing a socially challenged mother, and was promoted from Police Constable to Detective Inspector in a year by the BBC on Eastenders and Ruth Rendell. More recently she has been filming three feature films for Open Palm Films, including Simon Amstell's 2019 Benjamin.