Acting
Apr 26, 1966
Oldham, Lancashire, England, UK
Siobhan Finneran
Acting
Biography
Siobhan Margaret Finneran is an English television and film actress. She made her screen debut in the 1987 independent film Rita, Sue and Bob Too, and subsequently worked consistently in television drama including roles in Coronation Street (1989–1990), Clocking Off (2000–2002) and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006). In 2005, Finneran originated the lead female role in the stage play On the Shore of the Wide World and was awarded the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Also a comedy performer, Finneran appeared as Janice Garvey, a leading character in the first seven series of ITV sitcom Benidorm (2007–2015). Later television roles include portraying a lawyer in the mini-series Unforgiven (2009), an embittered servant in the first three series of the costume drama Downton Abbey (2010–2012) and a recovering addict in Happy Valley (2014–2023), for which she was nominated for the 2017 British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress. Later film credits include Mrs Swift in the 2013 film release The Selfish Giant, which earned her a British Independent Film Award nomination. Finneran is also a prolific television documentary narrator. Finneran was born in Oldham, Greater Manchester, then in Lancashire, to Irish parents. She moved with her family to Saddleworth as a young child, and has lived in the area ever since. During childhood Finneran was always drawn to the performing arts and was a fan of the celebrated English comedian Eric Morecambe, recalling that "as a little girl I wanted to be Eric Morecambe. Not to be like him but to actually be him". She completed a theatre studies course. In 2023, Finneran became patron for Manchester based charity Contact Hostel, an organisation that provides support and accommodation for teenage girls facing homelessness.
Feature Films (22)
A grief-stricken video archivist becomes increasingly obsessed with the meaning behind a sinister television signal hijacking.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion
It started with a 999 call from a lorry driver in Essex and ended in one of the UK’s biggest ever police investigations, a hunt for those responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants. Spanning Britain, Europe and Vietnam, this film shows how detectives cracked open a multimillion-pound international smuggling ring with its roots in a seemingly innocuous haulage business in the heart of Northern Ireland.
Hunting the Essex Lorry Killers
A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village.
The Damned
On a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
25 years after the verdict in the Jamie Bulger murder trial, we reveal what the jury, public and press never heard, and what his two killers, Thompson and Venables, said during their time in custody from arrest to release.
James Bulger: The New Revelations
Television & Series (62)
Apparitions is a BBC drama about Father Jacob Myers, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, played by Martin Shaw, who examines evidence of miracles to be used in canonisation but also performs exorcisms. As he learns, Jacob's duties run deeper than just sending demons back to Hell; he later must prevent them all from escaping. Unlike most portrayals of exorcism and spirit possession in fiction, Apparitions is more religiously accurate and fact-based, incorporating the nature of demonic possession as described by the Church. It also recounts historical events associated with Christianity and other Abrahamic religions, which may have been caused by Heaven or Hell, indicating that the War described in the Bible may not have fully concluded. The series is written by Joe Ahearne.
Apparitions
Clocking Off is a British television drama series broadcast on BBC One for four series from 2000 to 2003. It was produced by Red Production Company, and created by Paul Abbott. Effectively an anthology programme that followed the lives of a group of workers at a Manchester textile factory, with each episode focusing on the private life of a different character. How much do you know about the person working next to you? From the outside, life at Mackintosh Textiles appears to run smoothly, but in a community with so many secrets to hide, things are far from straightforward. In six powerful, self-contained dramas, everyday life is fractured by tumultuous marriages, snatched passions, disappearing spouses, and gang harassment.
Clocking Off
Set in the Solana all-inclusive Resort, Benidorm follows the antics of regulars and first-time holiday makers on their journeys abroad.
