PARISH
Sarah

• 1. Career
• 1.1. Co-stars

Sarah Parish is an English actress. She is known for her work on television series including The Pillars of the Earth, Peak Practice, Hearts and Bones, Cutting It, Doctor Who, Mistresses, Merlin, Atlantis, Monroe, HBO's Industry, Stay Close, Trollied, W1A and, as the titular character, Bancroft.

Career

After training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London, her appearance in a cult advert for Manchester-based Boddingtons bitter in 1994 (as Vera, who likes nothing better than "a good rub down with chip fat"), led to a series of roles as Northern women, including Dawn Rudge in Peak Practice (1993), Allie Henshall in Cutting It (2002), Annie Naylor in Trust and Natalie Holden in Blackpool (2004). She starred alongside Debra Messing in the movie The Wedding Date, had a small role in The Holiday, which starred Jude Law, and appeared as the Empress of the Racnoss in the Christmas 2006 Doctor Who episode "The Runaway Bride".

Parish appeared in the one-off drama Recovery. She also starred in the BBC series ShakespeaRe-Told in which she played Beatrice. She returned as GP Katie Roden in series two and three of Mistresses, which debuted on BBC One in February 2009. She played Lady Catrina in the BBC television series Merlin.

In 2011 Parish co-starred in ITV's medical drama Monroe, alongside James Nesbitt. From 2013 to 2015 she appeared in the BBC TV series Atlantis, playing one of the main characters, Pasiphaë. From 2014 to 2017 she played the role of Anna Rampton in three series of the BBC TV comedy W1A. Since November 2015 Parish has portrayed Cheryl Fairweather in Sky One sitcom Trollied.

In December 2017 she played Supt Elizabeth Bancroft in the ITV miniseries Bancroft. The second series was broadcast in January 2020.

In December 2019 she appeared in The Cockfields as Melissa, girlfriend of Nigel Havers' character, Larry. In 2020 she appeared in the HBO/BBC drama Industry. In December 2021 Parish appeared in the Netflix original Stay Close as Lorraine.

Co-stars

She has frequently co-starred opposite David Tennant — in the 2004 musical serial Blackpool; the Tony Marchant drama Recovery; the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas special episode, "The Runaway Bride"; in the third series of the ITV crime drama Broadchurch; and in the 2017 film You, Me and Him. She has joked: "We're like George and Mildred – in 20 years' time we'll probably be doing a ropey old sitcom in a terraced house in Preston."