Karen Dunbar
Karen Dunbar is a Scottish comedian, actress and writer. She first appeared on television on the BBC Scotland sketch comedy series Chewin' the Fat and was subsequently given her own show by the channel, The Karen Dunbar Show. She voiced Finlay in the 2024 video game Still Wakes the Deep, for which she won the British Academy Games Award for Performer in a Supporting Role.
Her sketch show, The Karen Dunbar Show, received four nominations for the Golden Rose European TV Awards.
Early life
Dunbar was born in Ayr, before moving to Glasgow in the late 1980s following her secondary education. She attended Ayr Academy, and said in a 2023 interview that her biology teacher sketch from Chewin' the Fat was based on her own biology teacher during her time at Ayr Academy.Career
Television
Dunbar began her career as a DJ and karaoke host before she attended The Comedy Unit's open auditions in 1997 where she was cast in the BBC Scotland comedy sketch show Chewin' the Fat. She spoke about how she gave up a lucrative income to work fulltime on the show, but after Series 1 aired she struggled financially. She starred in The Karen Dunbar Show, which received two Golden Rose nominations for Best Comedy Show and Dunbar herself two personal nominations for Best Comedy Performance.Dunbar has presented BBC Radio Scotland series such as Karen Dunbar’s Beautiful Sunday and Karen’s Summer Supplement, as well as being a team captain on the quiz show Step Back in Time. In 2009, Dunbar starred in a six-part series of the Scottish comedy Happy Hollidays. She played the role of Arme Gonnerssen in M.I. High in 2009.
Theatre
In 2007, Dunbar made her first appearance in pantomime, at the King's Theatre in Glasgow, playing Nanny Begood in Sleeping Beauty. Further pantomime roles include the dual role of the Good Fairy and the Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella and Widow Twankey in Aladdin. She appeared as a critic on Britain's Got More Talent on 27 May 2008. She played the fairy godmother in Cinderella and appeared in the 2013–14 season as the Slave of the Ring in Aladdin.She has also played serious roles, including a performance in the poetic monologue A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle adapted by Denise Mina from Hugh MacDiarmid's poem of the same name. Between 2012 and 2016, she was featured in Phyllida Lloyd's trilogy of all-female Shakespeare plays at the Donmar Warehouse, playing Casca in Julius Caesar, Bardolph/Vernon in Henry IV and Trinculo in The Tempest.
Stand–up
In 2025, Dunbar toured Scotland, and her homecoming show at Ayr Town Hall was broadcast on BBC Scotland in December 2025. Dunbar will embark on a stand–up tour of Scotland entitled Aw Roon the Hooses beginning in September 2026.Personal life
Dunbar is a lesbian. She featured on The Scotsman's "Pink List" of LGBT people contributing to Scotland's cultural life in 2014 and was awarded the Role Model of the Year award at the Icon Awards which celebrate Scotland's LGBTI community in 2015. She spoke about her experiences of homophobia and the acceptance she found in Glasgow's LGBT community in a BBC documentary, I Belong to Glasgow, screened in 2014. She spoke in 2016 about her plans to marry her female partner.In 2018, Dunbar gave a TED talk in Glasgow, in which she spoke briefly about her recovery from a challenging upbringing, prior alcoholism and a change in her comedic style, which she later reverted.