
Acting
May 8, 1942
Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Rita May
Acting
Biography
Rita May is an English film and television actress, singer, and writer, best known for playing Mrs Kemp in Threads, Jean in Early Doors and Margaret in Trollied. She's also the only original cast remember who appeared in all episodes of the children's ITV drama series "Children's Ward" from 1989 to 2000.
Feature Films (16)

Drama based on events during the 1984/85 miners strike. One of the first dramatised accounts, it was written by Geoffrey Case and directed by Gordon Flemyng for Yorkshire Television and won the Rai award at the Prix Italia and the Prix Futura at the Berlin Film Festival in 1987.
Scab

George Purse is the gamekeeper for the duke's estate, a role he takes seriously. His position gives him a certain status, but he has an uneasy relationship with some of the locals, not least those who turn to poaching
The Gamekeeper

Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas — he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard-drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?
When Saturday Comes

Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mum. She offers emotional stability and a route to adulthood while Alan pitches the army. What will become of Mick?
Looks and Smiles

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.
Threads

Yorkshire, 1974. Fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions. When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions that draw them into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shocking revelations and police brutality.
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974

A month after the royal visit, the workers at Milton Colliery are brought crashing back down to earth by an underground explosion.
The Price of Coal, Part 2: Back to Reality

A group of 1980s wrestlers are forced to don the lycra once last time when their beloved local pub is threatened with closure.
Walk Like a Panther

Yorkshire writer Kate finds out her biological clock is ticking down the same day that her husband leaves her. To get over the financial crisis this creates she takes in car-dealer Dave. He's homeless as Kate's husband has moved in with his wife. This leaves the problem of how to get promptly pregnant. Surely not with increasingly interesting Dave. They can't even agree on a baby's name - he thinks Fanny is silly and she finds Elvis, well, inconceivable.
Fanny & Elvis

Jamie New is 16 and doesn’t quite fit in—instead of pursuing a "real" career he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure: he is going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mom and his amazing friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies and steps out of the darkness, into the spotlight.
Everybody's Talking About Jamie

A 7-year-old boy (Jonathan Mason) struggles to understand why his mother, newly returned from hospital, isn't giving him the attention he craves.
Nits
Television & Series (15)

Red Riding is a British crime drama limited series written by Tony Grisoni, based on the book series of the same name by David Peace. Comprised of the novels 1974 (1999), 1977 (2000), 1980 (2001), and 1983 (2002), with the first, third, and fourth of these became three feature-length television episodes, Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980 and Red Riding 1983. Three epic tales of murder, corruption and obsession. Utilising recurring characters and events, the Red Riding Trilogy recounts three series of gruesome crimes over a turbulent decade in Northern England.
Red Riding

Set in Valco, a fictional budget supermarket in the north west of England, Trollied finds the funny in one of our most familiar surroundings and focuses on the types of characters we all recognise: bored checkout staff, ineffectual managers and a range of customers, from the irate to the downright bizarre.
Trollied

Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates

Follows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles.









