Miriam Margolyes is a veteran of stage and screen, an award-winning actress who achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic. Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence, she also received Best Supporting Actress at the 1989 LA Critics Circle Awards for her role in Little Dorrit and a Sony Radio Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her unabridged recording of 'Oliver Twist'. She was the voice of the Matchmaker in Mulan and Fly, the mother dog, in Babe.
Her film credits include Yentl, Little Shop of Horrors, I Love You To Death, End of Days, Sunshine, The Age of Innocence, Cold Comfort Farm and Magnolia. She starred in Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Modigliani, Istvan Szabo's Being Julia and Ladies in Lavender. She played Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part II).
Miriam's most memorable TV credits include, Old Flames, Freud, Life and Loves of a She Devil, Blackadder, The Girls of Slender Means, Oliver Twist, The History Man, Vanity Fair and Supply & Demand. Her 2004 BBC TV documentary series Dickens in America was a worldwide success.
In 2010, she starred in the TV series, Merlin and in 2011 she played Shirley Dunwich in Doc Martin.
Stage credits include Madame Morrible in the London and Broadway productions of Wicked, Madame Arcati in Blithe Sprit (Melbourne), Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World (Sydney Theatre Company), The Vagina Monologues, Romeo & Juliet, She Stoops to Conquer & Orpheus Descending in London, The Killing of Sister George, The Threepenny Opera as well as her own award-winning, one-woman show, Dickens' Woman, performed at Festivals in Edinburgh, London, Sydney, Jerusalem, Santa Cruz, USA, New York City, Boston and in India.
She played The Duchess in the revival of Me & My Girl in 2010 and she starred in A Day In The Death of Joe Egg at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.
Miriam's voiceover work has been internationally acclaimed. She has recorded many audio books including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Matilda, Pinnocchio, The Worst Witch series and The Queen & I. She has voiced many TV documentaries and numerous commercials, the most famous probably being the Manikin Cigar ads, the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny and Dolly, the Chimp in the PG Tips Campaign.
In 2002, H.M The Queen awarded her the Order of the British Empire for her services to Drama.