 Doon Mackichan claims she never saw herself as a comedienne, but as a
performer who can "tell stories and pull a few faces", attributes that brought
her to the fore as one third of the team in the double Emmy-award-winning sketch
show, Smack the Pony (Channel 4, 1999-2003).
Her family moved when she was nine from Surrey to Fife, where at the drama
club she survived by playing 'posh bitches'. Leaving Manchester University with
a drama degree, she performed stand-up comedy and formed a double-act with Anne
Rabbitt as slapstick hosts of children's programme Wake Up London (ITV,
1985).
Following fleeting cameos in the likes of Harry Enfield's Television
Programme (BBC, 1990-92), her comedy breakthrough came as part of the
writer-performer team of Radio 4's spoof news programme, On the Hour, which
transferred to television as The Day Today (BBC, 1994). She subsequently made
appearances alongside former co-stars Steve Coogan and Chris Morris on,
respectively, Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (BBC, 1994) and the
controversial Brass Eye (Channel 4, 1997-2001), before grabbing a bigger share
of the spotlight alongside Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips on Smack the Pony.
In between have come appearances in more conventional sitcoms - Agony Again
(BBC, 1995), Beast (BBC, 2000-01) and Bed Time (BBC, 2001-03) - while she has
lent her voice to documentaries and to animated characters in Bob and Margaret
(Channel 4, 1998-99) and Stressed Eric (BBC, 1998-2000).
'Straighter' roles have seen her as the manipulative Sophronia Lammle in Our
Mutual Friend (BBC, 1998), as Cherie Blair in A Very Social Secretary (Channel
4, 2005) and as a BBC producer in Taking the Flak (BBC, 2009). Still combining
theatre and television careers, in 2010 she revived her one-woman stage show,
Primadoona.
Graham Rinaldi
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FILM & TV CREDITS
