Penny Layden
Biography
Born 1969, Penny Layden is a British actress and narrator. She has performed at the National Theatre, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic Theatre, with Shared Experience and the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Known For & Full Filmography17 Titles
Drama Series - 2012, 16 episodes • as Brenda McEntee
Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.
Drama Series - 2013, 16 episodes • as Nora Banks
Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
Drama Series - 2006, 16 episodes • as Shelley Baxter
Waterloo Road is a British television drama series set in a comprehensive school of the same name, first broadcast on BBC One on 9 March 2006, and concluding its original run on 9 March 2015. It was recommissioned in 2021, and resumed starting 9 January 2023. At the failing comprehensive school, and later academy of the same name, the professional and personal lives of the students and staff are examined. Affairs, scandals, blackmail and many, many headteachers. Who said education was easy?
Drama Series - 2024, 16 episodes • as Shirley
When five ordinary South Londoners discover they have extraordinary powers, it's down to just one man to bring them together to save the woman he loves.
Drama Series - 2001, 16 episodes • as Hammond
Detective Sergeant Tommy Murphy is a maverick cop with a dark past. After failing a psychiatric assessment, he's given one last chance by his boss and given a dangerous undercover assignment. A loner with little to lose and dealing with everything on his own terms, this time around, however, Murphy has an ally in Detective Inspector Annie Guthrie.
Drama Series - 2009, 16 episodes • as Hettie Foster
The lives, loves and highs and lows of four members of the Women's Land Army working at the Hoxley Estate during World War II.
Movie - 2012, 2h 15m • as DC Jenks
Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.
Drama Series - 2011, 16 episodes • as Mrs Huggins
The lives and loves of a 1930s Yorkshire town explored in a passionate tale of politics in small places. South Riding charts the story of Sarah Burton's homecoming to Yorkshire in 1934 after twenty years teaching in London and the Empire. After a fiery interview with a conservative interview panel, outspoken Sarah takes up her first headmistress-ship at Kiplington High School for Girls, determined to demonstrate to her new pupils that the future is theirs for the taking.
Drama Series - 2016, 16 episodes • as Margaret Stott
The story of Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, a poisoner whose methods leave no visible scars, allowing her tally of victims to mount, unsuspected by a Victorian society unable to conceive of a woman capable of such terrible crimes. Traveling around the North East, she insinuates herself into unsuspecting families, marrying and creating new families of her own - before killing them, taking their money and moving on.
Movie - 2007, 2h 15m • as Rambler Annie
Karen Cooper wants to domineer her family and believes she's its pillar. In fact she does everything wrong. Thus she messes up all their lives and futures, rather then help her loved-ones.
Movie - 2020, 2h 15m • as Blossom (voice)
In a small English town, the winds blow cold, and the old streets are looking down at heel. Lost in memories of long ago, Barbara watches the world from her living room window, as it keeps moving and changing.
Movie - 2018, 2h 15m • as Ross
The ruined aftermath of a bloody civil war. Ruthlessly fighting to survive, the Macbeths are propelled towards the crown by forces of elemental darkness. Shakespeare’s most intense and terrifying tragedy, directed by Rufus Norris, sees Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff return to the National Theatre to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
Movie - 2008, 2h 15m • as Sue
N has been a day patient at north London's Dorothy Fish day hospital for 13 years - her ambition is never to leave. Then she meets glamourous new patient Poppy Shakespeare, an ad agency receptionist convinced she's not mad.
Movie - 2024, 2h 15m • as Mary Wilfer
A storm rages and, in the darkest part of the night, a body is pulled from the swirling river. Across the city, two young women confront an uncertain future.
Movie - 2015, 2h 15m • as Knowledge
Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out. One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, it now explodes onto the stage in a startling production with words by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and movement by Javier De Frutos.
Movie - 2017, 2h 15m • as Britannia
A powerful play by Carol Ann Duffy, using the words of people from across a divide Britain. Originally presented at the National Theatre and now reworked for the screen, Britannia convenes a meeting to listen to her people and consider whether there can ever be a 'United Kingdom'.
Movie - 2021, 2h 15m • as Nam
When a young soldier appears, his hope of escape comes with suspicion. And as an old enemy also emerges, he is faced with an even greater temptation: revenge.