British actress Maxine Peake

She's fabulous, and boy has she blossomed since being in that Victoria Wood sitcom, Dinnerladies.

I miss SILK. I wonder when we'll have more!

Silk was cancelled. There won't be any more episodes.

Bump for the British talent,

I'm going to see Hamlet next month and am ridiculously excited for it. Some of my friends have already been and haven't stopped raving about it.

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I'd love to see Peake as Dusty Springfield, her or Jessica Hynes.

I meant to check her out in the Ben Whishaw role in that Criminal Justice sequel. Is it worth checking out?

Anything with Peake and Olivia Williams is worth seeing, I would say.

R5 I saw her Hamlet this week, it was fabulous.

is she a lesbian?

No, R11. She lives with a man.

yes, I like her, too. I saw her in the Anne Lister story.

I just started the Criminal Justice dvd with her in it. Seems good - is it worth watching to the end?

Read about her in a play or some sort of performance based on a Shelley poem, sounded good, too

She is playing Hamlet!

I love Maxine Peake. She's currently in S2 of The Village, a BBC period drama (very worthy). She's probably loving that as she's a card carrying communist and this season is all about the first Labour government. That should put the DL right off her!

She's spending this year up at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Currently performing as a gender-swap Hamlet. R13 - that's also where she performed Masque of Anarchy, the Shelley poem about the Peterloo Massacre you're thinking of.

Thanks for the mention about The Village, R15 - I will have to check it out. And yes, that is the Shelley poem. I would have like to have seen that.

Me too R16. I really commend her for spending the year in Manchester (and for all the support she's given to the Royal Exchange over the years). It's fab that this Hamlet, which is getting fantastic reviews, is NOT in London.

I liked her best as the dopey Twink in Dinnerladies.

Stuff like Silk or The Village just don't interest me but she's certainly up here with Olivia Colman and Sheridan Smith.

Another British actress coming into her own is Anna Chancellor, in small parts for years (as in that 90s BBC Pride & Prejudice), she did Private Lives with Toby Stephens recently to great acclaim (I saw his mother Maggie Smith in the role in the 70s).. Chancellor is now in Downton Abbey as the randy Lady Anstruther, found in bed with the dishy footman. She is also Lucia in the new MAPP AND LUCIA which the BBC are doing - though how they expect that to be as good as the classic 80s series (with Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales) is beyond me, this new version has Miranda Richardson as Mapp.

My friend went on holiday with Maxine. Their partners are friends. She's very down to earth, apparently.

She's playing a lesbian in a TV series for Channel 4.

A trailer.

Unfortunately, she's paired with someone fug.

I loved Silk. Sorry they cancelled it. She was great in it. I saw her in something else but don't remember what. Silk was really interesting to me as an American because the way British law practices are run is so different from the US--the fact that barristers in the same office can be prosecutors or defense attorneys for one. I loved the guy who ran the office (character was named Billy). Have seen that actor in a few other things on Acorn TV.