You know English actress Sophie Thompson, but you may not know you know her! She’s a great comic actress who is often cast in key supporting roles in frock flicks, plus she’s the sister of fellow actress Emma Thompson.
Sadly, there are a number of productions for which I can’t find pictures of Sophie:
- Diana/Shrimpy in Secret Orchards (1979)
- Mercy Lewis in The Crucible (1981)
- Doris in The Death of the Heart (1987)
- Jillie Harris in Bomber Harris (1989)
- Jane Hogarth in A Harlot’s Progress (2006)
- Catherina’s Servant in The Borgias (2012)
- Lorna Felwood in Lightfields (2013)
- Aggie in The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm (2014)
- Dorothy in That Day We Sang (2014)
- Aggie in Professor Branestawm Returns (2015)
Plus, she’ll be playing Mrs. Dunn in the upcoming Belgravia: The Next Chapter, sequel to the 2020 series.
But for the rest, let’s run her down!
Penelope in A Traveller in Time (1978)
A 20th-century girl (Thompson) travels back in time to observe the Babington Plot and Mary Queen of Scots.
Mission Girl in The Missionary (1982)
Michael Palin plays an early 20th-century missionary who is assigned to a brothel.
Agatha in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1992)
She appears to be playing a maid in this one episode of the TV series.
Mary Musgrove in Persuasion (1995)
Everyone’s favorite whiny, hypochondriac sister! “Why does everyone think I am not a good walker?”
Miss Bates in Emma (1996)
She plays the impoverished, talkative neighbor who irritates Emma but teaches her some good lessons.
Rose Mundy in Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)
“Five unmarried sisters make the most of their simple existence in rural Ireland in the 1930s,” per Wikipedia. Sorry, never seen it or the play it’s based on!
Mrs. Perks in The Railway Children (2000)
An Edwardian family’s father is accused of being a spy, so the family has to move to a run-down home near train tracks.
Dorothy in Gosford Park (2001)
She’s one of the many downstairs servants; specifically, a still-room maid.
Miss Lacreevy in Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
The portrait painter who rents a room to Mrs. Nickleby and daughter, although they are forced to move out.
Bessie Topp in The Young Visiters (2003)
Another maid!
Charlotte Bartlett in A Room With a View (2007)
I’ve blocked out this attempt to redo the Greatest Frock Flick of All Time, so I can only tell you that Charlotte Bartlett is lead character Lucy’s annoying spinster aunt.
Mrs. Reynolds in Poirot: Hallowe’en Party (2010)
One episode of the 1930s-set murder mystery series.
Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer (2012)
A broadcast version of a National Theatre Live production, but it was on screen and it has costumes! The play (first performed in 1773) is a comedy of manners about class.
Lizzie Capstick in Jericho (2016)
She’s a saloon owner with a wild daughter in this TV series about a pop-up town for railway builders in 1870s Yorkshire.
Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (2018)
Another filmed stage production, this time Oscar Wilde‘s famous 1895 play.
What’s your favorite Sophie Thompson historical role?
When she played Miss Bates, her mother Phyllida Law played her on-screen mother, Mrs. Bates — and neither of them knew the other had auditioned until they both showed up, haha.
A Room with a View, I believe is set during 1912, this time around? I liked Gosford Park partially for the glam evening attire! I’m partial to both 1912 and ca 1932 fashion! But in Room With A View the corsetry could be better?
My god, that woman just melts into character. Is there anything she can’t do? (I have the impression from interviews that Ms. Law and her two daughters are a happy trio, which I hope is true.)
Thompson is an excellent character actress. Checking IMDB I was astonished how many films I’ve seen her in.
I think the Sherlock Holmes appearance was for an episode where Holmes goes under cover in a blackmailer’s household to get info and romances Thompson’s character for that purpose.
As an unrepented and unabashed lover of the 1995 Emma, my favorite Sophie Thompson role is Miss Bates. She is a wonderful actress, in great company with her sister and mother. What a talented family! As you say, she’s often cast in secondary roles and always does a great job. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t aware of how much of a chameleon quality she has until I saw her as a blonde in the non Frock Flicks TV show, Detectorists. I had to look up that actress and was so surprised to learn it was her. She did an excellent job in that role as in all her others. I’ve been meaning to watch Dancing at Lughnasa and Nicholas Nickleby forever; now that I know she’s in both, perhaps that will light a fire under me to watch them. The two unfortunate things about this post are that there are so many of her roles without photos and (to my horror) learning that there was an attempt to remake A Room with a View. (No! No! No!) I will have to go back in time when I was blissfully ignorant of any adaptation beyond the perfect one from the 80s!!! Wonderful WCW choice!
She is on my “worship and adore” list…………..mad as a box of frogs. And she won Celebrity Masterchef in 2000 and thingy
She is not my favourite Miss Bates (I prefer Constance Chapman followed by Tamsin Grieg), but was an absolutely wonderful Mary Musgrove. It seems a great shame that her talent is so often used only in bit parts.
support
Not frock-flickie but Detectorists.