Polly James is an award winning British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actress
with a varied career in theatre, film, television and radio spanning nearly 40 years. She has worked extensively with leading directors including John Schlesinger

John Schlesinger

John Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...

 and Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

.

After graduating from RADA

Rada

Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....

, her TV career began in BBC2's Thirty-Minute Theatre, followed by the role of a drug addict in Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

 in 1967. She played Audrey Hargreaves in Coronation Street

Coronation Street

Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

in 1967. She is best known for her role as Beryl Hennessey in the first four series of the British sitcom The Liver Birds

The Liver Birds

The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...

(1969–74), with Nerys Hughes

Nerys Hughes

Nerys Hughes , is a Welsh actress, known primarily for her television roles.Nerys Hughes was born in Rhyl, . She studied drama at Rose Bruford College. She is best known for the role of Sandra Hutchinson in the enormously successful BBC TV series The Liver Birds which ran from 1969 to 1978 with a...

 (from the second series onwards). The series had started in April 1969 as an episode of Comedy Playhouse

Comedy Playhouse

Comedy Playhouse was a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served?...

, the BBC's breeding ground for sitcoms. She played Cicely Courtneidge in the biographical musical of the actress Once More with Music in 1976, appeared as a soubrette in Alan Clarke

Alan Clarke

Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...

's 1982 production of Baal

Baal (play)

Baal was the first full-length play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder...

, and in Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

in 1984. She appeared, too, in the West End

West End of London

The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...

 musicals, I and Albert

I and Albert

I and Albert is a 1972 musical by composer Charles Strouse, and lyricist Lee Adams. The plot is based on the lives of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and was adapted for the stage by Jay Presson Allen.-Production:...

and Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables - The Musical

Anne Of Green Gables - The Musical is a musical based on the novel, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The book is by Don Harron, the music is by Norman Campbell and the lyrics by Don Harron, Norman Campbell, Elaine Campbell and Mavor Moore...

.

In conjunction with her acting career, Polly James developed her directing and teaching skills both in the London theatre and in drama-based development workshops with the internationally renowned Skyros community.

Comedy

Year	Title	Role
1969 to 1974	The Liver Birds The Liver Birds The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...	Beryl Hennessey
1996	Whatever Happened to The Liver Birds? The Liver Birds The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...	Beryl Fenning née Hennessey

Children's

Year	Title	Role
2000 to 2001	The Worst Witch	Miss Lavinia Crotchet

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