They don't just hand out National Treasure status to anyone, you've got to earn it – and few would argue that Brenda Blethyn has made it to those rarefied heights.
Though she's best known popularly for her role as DCI Vera Stanhope, the no-nonsense Northumberland detective star of Vera, she's amassed an astonishing body of work over a career that spans five decades.
Born to parents in service (her mother was a maid, her father a chauffeur), she trained as a stenographer before turning to a career in acting. Let's take a look at some of her unfairly overlooked roles…
The Labours of Erica
She was already a TV star by 1989 but this was her first lead role in a series. She plays Erica, a businesswoman who discovers a list she made as a teenager of things to achieve before she turned 18. With the big 4-0 breathing down her neck, she embarks on a plan to achieve them.
The Labours of Erica is not available to watch in the UK at the moment.
Kate & Koji (ITVX)
This ITV sitcom returned Brenda to her Kent roots by filming in Herne Bay. She plays Kate, the owner of a down-at-heel greasy spoon, who develops a friendship – and lucrative illegal medical business – with asylum seeker (and unemployed doctor) Koji, played by Jimmy Akingbola.
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Dragonfly (BFI Player)
Last year's festival hit Dragonfly was written and planned to be filmed under Covid restrictions but in the event wasn't made till those restrictions had been lifted. The claustrophobia is still present though: Brenda plays Elsie, a lonely older woman who becomes close to her neighbour Andrea Riseborough – a sinister presence with a very aggressive dog – after an accident means she can't live as independently as she'd like.
London River (BFI Player)
One of the few films to directly engage with London's July 7 bombings in 2005, this follows Falklands War widow Elisabeth (Blethyn) and African Muslim Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté), both of whose estranged children are missing following the attacks. Together they learn more about their daughter and son as they approach the harrowing truth.
Secrets & Lies (Prime Video)
Perhaps it's not fair to call this "overlooked": Blethyn was nominated for an Oscar and won both a Golden Globe and a Bafta for her performance. In Mike Leigh's emotionally powerful family drama she stars as Cynthia, a woman who is contacted later in life by Hortense, the adult daughter she gave up for adoption (Marianne Jean-Baptiste).
Hortense's arrival is the catalyst that finally fractures the tensions and diplomatic silences that hold Cynthia's dysfunctional family together, while also keeping them apart.
Ethel & Ernest (BBC iPlayer)
Cartoonist Raymond Briggs is a legend thanks to his pioneering works like The Snowman, Fungus the Bogeyman, When the Wind Blows and Father Christmas, all of which were adapted for the screen.
This is perhaps his most personal work, a dual biography of his parents Ethel and Ernest Briggs, from their meeting in 1928, through marriage, economic hardship, parenthood, the war, and eventually their later years in '50s and '60s Britain. Blethyn plays Ethel, Jim Broadbent is Ernest.
The New Adventures of Old Christine (Prime Video)
This sitcom was a vehicle for Julia Louis-Dreyfus that ran between her epic runs on Seinfeld and Veep. "Old Christine" is the woman at the centre, a divorcee and single mother who is still in contact with her ex-husband, who has a girlfriend with the same name ("New Christine").
One episode in season four gave itself over entirely to examining Christine's relationship with her mother, played to a pitch of horrendous and neurotic delight by Blethyn.
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Editor, Digital Spy Chris has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor, having worked as a journalist covering TV and movies since the '90s. Starting out as a TV listings editor at the Press Association, he was quickly hired by the nascent Heat magazine, where he rose to become Senior Editor, interviewing the likes of Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and Paris Hilton. Over the years he has written about entertainment with clarity and wit for Heat, Elle, Q, The Telegraph and of course Digital Spy, and has served many times as a judge in the Royal Television Society awards. He has written and recorded a novelty single with Lord Lloyd-Webber, written scripts for the National TV Awards, made Noel Edmonds cry, accidentally punched an Inbetweener and stolen a small piece of rubble from the Battle of Hogwarts movie set. (They can't have it back.) LinkedIn
