Lorraine Ashbourne is good at playing women who have too much to manage and little inclination to be polite about it. We value the feeling beneath the bluntness, especially when an ensemble gives her room.
Fi1m perspective
In Riot Women (2025), Lorraine Ashbourne’s Jess joins a band of middle-aged women who have had enough of coping. They are allowed to be angry without all becoming equally likeable, and the series benefits from that freedom. We were moved by the women making music together because, after so much pressure to cope, they were giving time to something they wanted. Ashbourne, Tamsin Greig and Amelia Bullmore matter alongside the more conspicuous performances from Joanna Scanlan and Rosalie Craig.
Her sustained television lead in Playing the Field (1998), as Geraldine Powell, came well before the higher-profile recurring parts of her later career. Supporting film work, including Mary in The Selfish Giant (2013), ran alongside the television. From around 2019, she became more visible through series including Bridgerton (2020) and Sherwood (2022).
Alma’s Not Normal (2020), with Ashbourne as grandmother Joan Nuthall, offers a useful reminder that bluntness is only part of her appeal. She can turn quickly from comedy to emotional hurt within a scene, and make both count. Casting her repeatedly as mothers and women who take charge makes sense, though we would not want those parts to become her only options.
Riot Women also shows what helps her work. Sally Wainwright lets the women differ in their anger, rather than making each one a tidy example of the same complaint. The writing occasionally explains what the performances have already made clear, and those explanations slow a drama we otherwise recommend. Ashbourne is part of the reason they feel unnecessary.
There is a useful warning in Allelujah (2023), Richard Eyre’s film with Ashbourne as Mrs Earnshaw. Its gentle, well-acted ward comedy is let down by the later writing, and a capable cast cannot put that right. We would not recommend it merely to complete a list of her appearances. Start with Riot Women, and forgive the script when it tells you something you have already noticed.
Biography
Lorraine Ashbourne is an English actress born on 7 January 1961 in Manchester. She attended Wilbraham High School and trained at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art after earlier involvement with Stretford Children's Theatre, the University of Manchester Stage Society and Manchester Youth Theatre.
She has worked extensively in theatre, including regular appearances at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, and on screen in films such as King Kong (2005), Child 44 (2015) and Allelujah (2022), in which she played Mrs Earnshaw. Television roles include Mrs Varley in Bridgerton (2020–), Barbara Castle in The Crown (2019), Daphne Sparrow in Sherwood (2022) and Jess in Riot Women (2025).
Ashbourne is married to actor Andy Serkis.
