Early life

Horrocks, the youngest of three children, was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker, and John Horrocks, a sales representative. She attended Balladen County Primary School and later trained at Oldham College and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She drew critical notice for her performance in the film Life Is Sweet (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became a name with the role of Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012).

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

While working on Road, a play directed by Jim Cartwright, Horrocks warmed up by doing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Ethel Merman. Cartwright was so impressed with her mimicry he wrote The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for her. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1992 West End production, directed by her boyfriend Sam Mendes. She reprised her role in the 1998 screen adaptation, Little Voice, which earned nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - Motion Picture, and the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress.

In 2000, Horrocks made the CD Further Adventures of Little Voice, again singing in the style of favourite divas. The recording includes duets with Ewan McGregor, Robbie Williams and Dean Martin. Horrocks collaborated once more with Robbie Williams the following year, for a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Things" on Williams's album Swing When You're Winning.

Career

Horrocks has appeared on stage in Ask for the Moon (Hampstead, 1986), A Collier's Friday Night (Greenwich, 1987), Valued Friends (Hampstead, 1989), and The Debutante Ball (Hampstead, 1989). She appeared in Catherine Cookson's The Fifteen Streets, alongside Sean Bean and Owen Teale in 1989, Our Own Kind (Bush, 1991), Deadly Advice (Fletcher, 1993), Cabaret (Donmar Warehouse, 1994), Macbeth (Greenwich Theatre, 1995) and Absurd Person Singular (Garrick Theatre, 2007). Her last West End appearance was in Sweet Panic, the 2003 Stephen Poliakoff drama in which she portrayed a neurotic mother locked in a battle of wills with her disturbed son's psychologist. She starred in Richard Jones's critically acclaimed production of The Good Soul of Szechuan at the Young Vic in 2008, and was reunited with Jones in a new musical production of Annie Get Your Gun, which opened at the Young Vic in October 2009.In 2016s If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me Horrocks revisited the songs of her youth, to sing versions of tracks by the likes of Joy Division, The Smiths, The Buzzcocks and The Human League at London’s Young Vic.

Horrocks's voiceovers have been used on Chicken Run (2000), Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), Corpse Bride (2005), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) and Tinker Bell (2008) (in which she was Fairy Mary; she reprises the role in the Tinker Bell sequels), and on radio as Fenchurch in the audio adaptation of Douglas Adams' science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for BBC Radio 4. She has voiced Donner in all three Robbie the Reindeer films in aid of Comic Relief.

Other television credits include Absolutely Fabulous, Victoria Wood - We'd Quite Like To Apologise, Bad Girl, Boon, Heartland, Hunting Venus, La Nonna, Leaving Home, Never Mind the Horrocks, Nightlife, Wyrd Sisters, Foxbusters, Red Dwarf, Some Kind of Life, Suffer the Little Children, The Storyteller, The Garden, Fifi & the Flowertots, Little Princess (the voice of the princess) and Welcome to the Times. She was the subject of an episode of the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2006. That year she played the title role in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, a drama about a woman elected prime minister. For 10 years, Horrocks appeared with Prunella Scales in commercials for the UK supermarket chain Tesco. She narrated BBC Two's television series The Speaker in April 2009.

Also in 2009, Horrocks took the lead in the BBC TV production Gracie!, a drama portraying the life of Gracie Fields during World War II and her relationship with the Italian-born director Monty Banks (played by Tom Hollander).

On Tuesday 14 January 2014, Horrocks appeared as a contestant in The Great Sport Relief Bake Off on BBC Two. This programme is the celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off, whose purpose is to help raise money for the charity Sport Relief, and was hosted by Jo Brand. The other contestants were: TV and radio presenter Kirsty Young, choreographer Jason Gardiner, and Olympic athlete Greg Rutherford.

In October 2014, Horrocks will play Ella Khan in the London revival of East is East at Trafalgar Studios as part of Jamie Lloyd's Trafalgar Transformed season.

On 9 May 2015 she gave a reading at VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in Horse Guards Parade, London that was broadcast live on BBC1.

In 2015 she supplied the voice of the Tubby Phone in the reboot of the popular British children's television series Teletubbies.

Personal life

Horrocks lives with playwright Nick Vivian in Twickenham with their children, son Dylan and daughter Molly.

In 2011, Horrocks caused minor controversy by admitting to no longer shopping in Tesco, stating that '(t)here's always a set type of people doing their shopping ... whether it's pensioners holding everyone up or screeching kids. Or sometimes you can have rather a lot of chavs in, and that gets a bit scary.' Writers Julie Burchill and Barbara Allen branded Horrocks snobbish and hypocritical for her comments, drawing particular attention to the fact that Horrocks had famously fronted a series of adverts for the supermarket chain in the 1990s.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Directed by
1988	The Dressmaker	Rita	Jim O'Brien
1989	Getting It Right	Jenny	Randal Kleiser
	The Wolves of Willoughby Chase	Pattern	Stuart Orme
1990	The Witches	Miss Susan Irvine	Nicolas Roeg
	Memphis Belle	Faith	Michael Caton-Jones
	Life Is Sweet	Nicola	Mike Leigh
1993	Second Best	Debbie	Chris Menges
1994	Deadly Advice	Jodie Greenwood	Mandie Fletcher
1997	Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis	Mavis Davis / Marla Dorland	John Henderson
1998	Little Voice	LV	Mark Herman
1999	Faeries	Huccaby	Gary Hurst
1999	Hooves of Fire	Donner
2000	Chicken Run	Babs	Peter Lord & Nick Park
	Born Romantic	Mo	David Kane
	Lion of Oz	Wimsik	Tim Deacon
2001	Christmas Carol: The Movie	Ghost of Christmas Past	Jimmy T. Murakami
2002	Legend of the Lost Tribe	Donner
2005	Corpse Bride	The Black Widow / Mrs. Plum	Tim Burton
	Brothers of the Head	Roberta Howe	Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe
2006	Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties	Meenie	Tim Hill
2007	Close Encounters of the Herd Kind	Donner
2008	Tinker Bell	Fairy Mary	Bradley Raymond
2009	Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure	Fairy Mary	Klay Hall
2010	No One Gets Off in This Town
2011	Arthur Christmas	Lead Elf	Sarah Smith
2012	Secret of the Wings	Fairy Mary	Bobs Gannaway & Peggy Holmes
2013	Sunshine on Leith	Jean	Dexter Fletcher
2014	The Pirate Fairy	Fairy Mary	Peggy Holmes
2016	Ab Fab: The Movie

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	First Sight	Natalie	Episode: "Leaving Home" (1.3)
	Screenplay	Louise	Episode: "The Road" (2.13)
1988	The Storyteller	Anja	Episode: "The True Bride" (1.9)
	The Ruth Rendell Mysteries	Pippa Bond	Episode: "No Crying He Makes" (2.7)
1989	The Jim Henson Hour	Anja	Episode: "Musicians" (1.8)
	Victoria Wood	Cathy Warburton	Episode: "We'd Quite Like to Apologise" (1.4)
	Smith & Jones		Episode: "The Unprepared Version" (5.6)
1990	Boon	Trisha Downey	Episode: "Best Left Buried" (5.11)
1991	Screen One	Gail	Episode: "Alive and Kicking" (3.7)
	Performance		Episode: "Nona" (1.2)
1992	Red Dwarf	Nirvanah Crane	Episode: "Holoship" (5.1)
	Screenplay	Maggie Hunt	Episode: "Bad Girl" (7.3)
	Performance		Episode: "Roots" (2.3)
1995	Performance	Doll Tearsheet	Episode: "Henry IV" (5.5)
1996	Tales from the Crypt	Cammy	Episode: "Cold War" (7.6)
	Never Mind the Horrocks	Various roles
1997	Wyrd Sisters	Magrat Garlick	Television mini-series
	The Blobs	Various	26 Episodes
1995-1998	Crapston Villas	Flossie	20 episodes
1999	Foxbusters	Jeffries
1999-2000	Watership Down	Hannah	14 episodes
2000	Mirrorball	Yitta Hilberstam	Television pilot
2001	Little Big Mouth	Krystan
2002	Linda Green	Teresa Franklin	Episode: "Teresa" (2.2)
2003-2004	Wide-Eye	Flea	52 episodes
2004	Monkey Trousers	Various roles
2005	Jericho	Sadie Swettenham	Episode: "To Murder and Create" (1.3)
2006	The Street	Angela Quinn	Episodes: "The Accident" (1.1) "Stan" (1.2)
2005-2005	Fifi and the Flowertots	Fifi Forget-Me-Not	40 episodes
2006	The Amazing Mrs Pritchard	Ros Pritchard	6 episodes
2006-2007	Little Princess	Little Princess
2011	Coming Up	Felicity	Episode: "Magic" (6.5)
	Phineas and Ferb	Eliza	Episode: "My Fair Goalie" (3.11)
	This is Jinsy	Mrs. Stenton	Episode: "Vel" (1.6)
	Little Crackers	Hairdresser	Episode: "Jane Horrocks' Little Cracker: Barbara" (2.3)
	Pixie Hollow Games	Fairy Mary	Television special
2012	Get Your House in Order	Narrator	Episode: "Stuart" (1.3)
	True Love	Sandra	Episode: "Sandra" (1.4)
1992-2012	Absolutely Fabulous	Bubble	33 episodes
2011-2013, 2015	Trollied	Julie Cook	35 episodes
2014	Lily's Driftwood Bay	Wee Rabbit	(filming)
2015	Inside No. 9	Liz	"Cold Comfort" (2.4)
2015	Teletubbies	Tubby Phone

Television films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1989	The Fifteen Streets	Christine Bracken
	Heartland	Pam
1991	Came Out, It Rained, Went Back in Again	Learner Lesbian
1993	Cabaret	Sally Bowles
1994	Self Catering	Marilyn
	Suffer the Little Children	Deborah Hayes
1995	Some Kind of Life	Alison
1996	Nightlife	Helen
1999	Hunting Venus	Cassandra
	The Flint Street Nativity	Zoe
2009	Gracie!	Gracie Fields
2010	The Road to Coronation Street	Margaret Morris

Short film, television and video

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Butter	Begger	Television
1995	Combination Skin		Short film
1999	Hooves of Fire	Donner	Television
2002	Legend of the Lost Tribe	Donner / Arctic Fox	Television
2002	Last Rumba in Rochdale	Gran	Short film
2004	Wheeling Dealing	Authentic Newsreader	Short film
2006	Voices from the Underworld	Herself	Video Short
2007	Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind	Donner	Television
2011	The Itch of the Golden Nit		Short film

Music videos

• New Order - 1963 (1995)

Awards and honours

• BAFTA Awards (1999): Nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for Little Voice (1998)
• British Independent Film Awards (1999): Nomination for Best Actress for Little Voice (1998)
• Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (1999): Nomination for Best Actress for Little Voice (1998)
• Golden Globes (1999): Nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture -Comedy/Musical, for Little Voice (1998)
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (1991): Won Award for Best Supporting Actress for Life is Sweet (1991)
• National Society of Film Critics Awards (1992): Won Award for Best Supporting Actress for Life Is Sweet
• Satellite Awards (1999): Nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical for Little Voice (1998)
• Screen Actors Guild Awards (1999): Nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, for Little Voice (1998), shared with Annette Badland, Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, Philip Jackson and Ewan McGregor.
• Screen Actors Guild Awards (1999): Nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for Little Voice (1998)
• Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival (1994): Won Best Actress Award for Deadly Advice (1994)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]