Katherine Kelly

As Katrina in How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge) (2025), Katherine Kelly helps keep an uneven series watchable. It is a useful supporting contribution, and there is no need to pretend it is more. We enjoyed her company, alongside Felicity Montagu's Lynn, because both helped when the central premise began to feel stretched. Kelly gives us a reason to stay with a series that keeps returning to familiar mistakes. She cannot make the writing more reliable.

Becky McDonald in Coronation Street (2006–2012) gave her much more room for chaotic energy. The performance developed over six years and established Kelly as a major television presence. Playing Lady Mae Loxley in Mr Selfridge (2013) marked her first major recurring period-drama role after the soap. Her later, more restrained work makes it difficult to mistake Becky's behaviour for the only thing she can do.

Sally Wainwright wrote DI Jodie Shackleton in Happy Valley (2016) for her, a good match for Kelly's ability to give authority figures some complexity. They worked together again on Gentleman Jack (2019), with Kelly playing Elizabeth Sutherland and conveying social constraint and personal tension. Her Yorkshire accent in both programmes helps those characters feel grounded. These are useful places to look beyond Becky, particularly for the way Kelly can hold back after making her name playing someone so unruly.

The Partridge role is a smaller comic job, and it needs to be judged at that size. Steve Coogan remains the main reason to watch, with Kelly and Montagu helping to sustain an overstretched mental-health mockumentary. Our 65 reflects the shortage of fresh jokes, not an objection to spending time with these performers. The sharply observed digressions are worth having, but we would not recommend the whole series on the strength of Kelly's presence alone. Start with Happy Valley if she is the reason for choosing.