Katy Carmichael
Katy Jane Carmichael is an English actress, director and producer. She is most known for her roles as Twist Morgan in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, Lucy Barlow in the ITV soap Coronation Street, and Melissa Ryan in Waterloo Road. As a director-producer, her work includes the award-winning Mayday Mayday.
Early life
Born and brought up in Liverpool as the daughter of two architects, Carmichael attended Gateacre Community Comprehensive School. She did her A-levels at Liverpool College, Mossley Hill, Liverpool.After six seasons with the National Youth Theatre, she studied for a drama, film and television degree, at the University of Bristol with peers Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes and Myfanwy Moore, and had a five-year relationship with the then-unknown drama student David Walliams.
Career
Her first professional acting role at the age of 18 was Connie in the Liverpool sitcom Bread which she filmed during her university studies. Early in her career, she teamed up with lifelong friend, future Spaced star and writer Jessica Hynes in a comedy double-act called The Liz Hurleys. After leaving university, she began a TV career with the 1950s Liverpool drama And The Beat Goes On, the Galton and Simpson series with Paul Merton, Wing and a Prayer, Death Of A Salesman, and Dennis Potter's Karaoke / Cold Lazarus. She played DC Jo McMullen in Liverpool 1.Carmichael reunited with Hynes and Pegg to play Twist Morgan in the BAFTA nominated Channel 4 sitcom Spaced. The sitcom lasted for two series. The three also previously appeared together in the short-lived sketch show Six Pairs of Pants.
In 2001, Carmichael starred in her first film, Dead Babies, based on the novel by Martin Amis. She also appeared in Kenneth Branagh's comedy film In the Bleak Midwinter as mad puppetwoman and played the female lead Jane Wells in the period fantasy drama The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells. A variety of roles in comedy and drama followed, including Hex, Scarlett, One Foot in the Grave, Clocking Off and Cutting It. In 2002, she landed the role of florist Lucy Richards in Coronation Street and was involved in the award-winning Peter Barlow bigamy storyline for two years. She went on to play Melissa Ryan in school drama Waterloo Road in 2009. Carmichael played the mother in Danny Stack's short supernatural thriller Origin. In 2014, she played Helen the down-trodden housewife in Jimmy McGovern's series Moving On for the BBC and was Hayley Blake, Connie Beauchamp's nemesis, in Casualty. She plays Clarity Winlove in The Living and The Dead.
On stage, she played opposite Steven Berkoff in his 3-hander Sturm and Drang and Brighton Beach Scumbags at the Riverside Studios, Yseult -Whitehands with Kneehigh Theatres's international hit Tristan and Yseult . Work at other theatres includes seasons at the Royal Exchange Theatre, the Liverpool Everyman, The Gate, and The Bristol Old Vic, where she met her future husband actor Tristan Sturrock in a production of The Beaux Stratagem.
In 2010, they set up Bristol based Theatre Damfino together. She has directed the company's projects to date including Mayday Mayday winner of the International Fringe Review award and selected to play at St Ann's Warehouse New York and Spoleto Festival USA. Mayday Mayday is a drama documentary. The Radio play won the International Third Coast award was nominated for two BBC Drama awards 2016 – best sound design and finalist for best drama production.
Carmichael collaborated with Bib Gourmand winning chef Matt Williamson and Guardian food writer Claire Thomson to create the food-theatre show The Table Of Delights, which began as a gourmet tasting and performance experience for adults. The children's version of the show premiered at The Print Room at The Old Coronet winning the Off West End award for best production for families category. Carmichael is creative director of The Table of Delights online a new food entertainment website sponsored by Yeo Valley and Pukka Tea.
She directed singer and songwriter Kate Dimbleby's solo show Songbirds based on her acclaimed a cappella album.
As narrator, Carmichael has read several audiobooks, including The Rook by Daniel O'Malley and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She has provided voice over for numerous television advertisements.