
Carol Drinkwater
Acting
Biography
Carol Drinkwater (born 22 April 1948) is an Anglo-Irish actress, author and filmmaker. She portrayed Helen Herriot (née Alderson) in the television adaptation of the James Herriot books All Creatures Great and Small, which led to her receiving the Variety Club Television Personality of the Year award in 1985. Drinkwater is the daughter of the bandleader and agent, Peter Regan (born Peter Albert Drinkwater) and Irish nurse, Phillis McCormack. She was a member of the National Theatre Company under the leadership of Laurence Olivier and has acted in numerous television series and films including the highly successful Chocky, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, Another Bouquet and Golden Pennies. Drinkwater won a Critics' Circle Best Screen Actress award for her role, Anne, in the feature film Father (1990) in which she starred opposite Max von Sydow. Amongst many other film and television series, she has appeared in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), Queen Kong (1976), The Shout (1978), Father (1990), and the film adaptation of Beryl Bainbridge's novel An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), directed by Mike Newell and starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. She has written a number of children's books, including her first, The Haunted School, which was produced as a television mini-series and film. Bought by Disney, it won the Chicago International Film Festival Gold Award for Children's Films. Her books for adults include commercial fiction and a series of best-selling memoirs about her experiences on her olive farm in Provence. In 2013 Drinkwater worked on a series of five documentary films inspired by her two Mediterranean travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree. The OLIVE ROUTE films were completed in February 2013 and have since been broadcast on international networks worldwide. In 2015 Penguin Books UK announced a deal signed with Drinkwater to write two epic novels. The first, The Forgotten Summer, was published in March 2016. The second, The Lost Girl, was published in June 2017. Drinkwater revealed to The Guardian, in October 2017, that the experience of the starlet Marguerite in The Lost Girl was based on her own experience of being sexually assaulted by Elia Kazan while auditioning for the leading film role in his film The Last Tycoon (1976). In 2018 Penguin signed a second deal with Drinkwater for two more novels. The first, published in May 2019, is The House on The Edge of The Cliff. She is married to French TV producer Michel Noll.
Known For

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty

Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.
Peak Practice

A British television anthology of stories, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, and a twist at the end. With early episodes written and presented by Roald Dahl, the series featured a plethora of big name guest stars.
Tales of the Unexpected

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.
The Sweeney

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.
All Creatures Great and Small

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?
A Clockwork Orange

A series of plays specially written for television.
The Play on One

Compelling crime anthology looks at some of Britain's most notorious murder trials, in which both male and female defendants stood accused of the murder of women. Presented by Robert Morley, seven hour-long dramas reconstruct sensational trials which shocked Britain, offering in-depth analyses of individuals' motives and methods.
Lady Killers

This ten episode program was based on ten short stories written by Agatha Christie but with wide-ranging themes. Some were romances, some had supernatural themes and a couple were adventures. The common link was that all came from the talented pen of Agatha Christie, all were entertaining and each drama was carefully crafted and well cast with many of Britain's best known actors of the time represented.
The Agatha Christie Hour

Following the death of the sitting Labour Party Member of Parliament, Bill Brand is selected as Labour candidate for a Lancashire textile constituency.
Bill Brand

Raffles was a 1977 television adaptation of the A. J. Raffles stories by Ernest William Hornung. The series was produced by Yorkshire Television and written by Philip Mackie. The episodes were largely faithful adaptations of the stories in the books, though occasionally two stories would be merged to create one. In Victorian-era London, gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, a renowned cricketer, and his friend, the eager but naive Bunny Manders, test their skills in relieving the wealthy of their valuables whilst avoiding detection, especially from the persistent Inspector Mackenzie.
Raffles

Alone and without her parents, Judith Dunbar spends her school days in a boarding school. When her friend Loveday invites her to Gut Nancherrow one day, it is love at first sight for Judith. The elegant lady of the house Diana, her husband Colonel Cary-Lewis and Loveday's siblings Edward and Athena immediately fall in love with her and treat her like family. But the outbreak of the Second World War put an end to the idyll on Nancherrow overnight. A long, thorny road lies ahead of Judith until she finally finds happiness in a family of her own...
Coming Home

A Mind to Kill is a police detective series set in Wales, UK. It was developed from a 1991 pilot which starred Philip Madoc as DCI Bain, and Hywel Bennett. The series ran from 1994 to 2004 and first aired as Yr Heliwr on S4C, the Welsh language TV channel, before being broadcast on the UK Network channel, Channel 5. The series was filmed in English and in Welsh, with each scene being shot first in one language and then in the other. It has since been dubbed into more than a dozen languages and shown all over the world. The 21 episodes have been divided into 3 series which are now available on DVD. The pilot episode is also available on DVD.
A Mind to Kill

A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learned to displace his host.
The Shout

Chocky is a 1984 children's television drama based on the 1968 novel by John Wyndham and was broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom. Two sequels were produced. All were written by Anthony Read and produced by Thames Television. The series was also broadcast and popular in Czechoslovakia - both dubbings were made. While the 1968 novel was set in an unspecified 'near future', the TV adaptation was set contemporaneously in the mid-1980s. The Gore family acquire a second generation Citroen CX car which was marketed as being technologically advanced at the time.
Chocky

Liverpool. 1947. Right after World War II, a star struck naive teenage girl joins a shabby theatre troupe in Liverpool. During a winter production of Peter Pan, the play quickly turns into a dark metaphor for youth as she becomes drawn into a web of sexual politics and intrigue and learns about the grown-up world of the theater.
An Awfully Big Adventure

Drama about the Dunar and Carey-Lewis families, before during and after WW2.
Coming Home

Based on Captain James Cook's three voyages. It was on his first voyage, in 1770 (while in the South Pacific region to observe the transit of Venus), that Captain Cook discovered the east coast of Australia. He later recommended Australia as a future British colony. The series was financed by $5 million from Revcom France, $2.25 million from the ABC and the rest from 10BA tax money.
Captain James Cook

Lady Booby alias 'Belle', the lively wife of the fat landed squire Sir Thomas Booby, has a lusty eye on the attractive, intelligent villager Joseph Andrews, a Latin pupil and protégé of parson Adams, and makes him their footman. Joseph's heart belongs to a country girl, foundling Fanny Goodwill, but his masters take him on a fashionable trip to Bath, where the spoiled society comes mainly to see and be seen, but drowns in the famous Roman baths. When the all but grieving lady finds Joseph's Christian virtue and true love resist her lusting passes just as well as the many ladies who fancy her footman, she fires the boy. He's found and nursed by an innkeeper's maid, which stirs lusts there, again besides his honorable conduct, but is found by the good parson.
Joseph Andrews

A female film crew journeys to Africa where a giant ape, Queen Kong, falls in love with the crew's male star.