Matilda Ziegler
Acting
Biography
Matilda Ziegler is an English actress, best known for her roles as Donna Ludlow in EastEnders, Irma Gobb in Mr. Bean, and Pearl Pratt in Lark Rise to Candleford. Ziegler's first screen role was in her early twenties, during 1987–89; she appeared in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders, playing Donna Ludlow, the illegitimate daughter of series regular Kathy Beale. Donna contended with prostitution, an attempted gang rape, heroin addiction and finally suicide (dying of a heroin overdose). The final death scenes of Ziegler's character, who had choked to death on her own vomit, have been hailed as one of the most powerful anti-drug images ever screened on the programme. She left EastEnders in April 1989. In the early 1990s, Ziegler starred in the ITV comedy Mr. Bean, where she played multiple characters, especially a three-episode stint as Irma Gobb, the title character's long-suffering girlfriend. She reprised her role as Gobb, voicing her in Mr. Bean: The Animated Series, from 2002 to 2004, and in the revived series from 2015 to 2019. Other television credits include: Lark Rise to Candleford (2008–2010) in which she played the part of Pearl Pratt, in the BBC adaptation of Flora Thompson's novel; Harbour Lights (1999); Where the Heart Is (2000); Holby City (2003); An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1998); The Bill (2003), and Home, alongside Anthony Sher in an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel. Ziegler played Ruth, wife of car salesman Toni, in the BBC sitcom Swiss Toni (2003–04). She also appeared in the BAFTA Television Award winning drama, Sex Traffic (2004). In 2005, she played Christine Miller in the fourth series of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, and in 2007, she guest starred in the BBC One daytime medical drama Doctors as Jess Butler. She also appeared in Outnumbered, Lewis (in the episode 'The Soul of Genius', 2012), Death in Paradise (2013), and Vera (in the episode "Young Gods", 2013). In 2015, she appeared in an episode of Foyle's War, and in series 4 episode of Call the Midwife. In 2020 she appeared in a second season episode of The Alienist, and appeared in two episodes of The Girlfriend Experience in 2021. Ziegler's film roles include Decadence (1994), Jilting Joe (1998), City Slacker (2012), and The Rhythm Section (2019) where she played Blake Lively's mother.
Known For
The everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough.
EastEnders
A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.
Death in Paradise
Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.
Call the Midwife
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
A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.
Vera
Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
Father Brown
The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.
The Bill
Inspector Robert Lewis and Sergeant James Hathaway solve the tough cases that the learned inhabitants of Oxford throw at them.
Lewis
As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.
Foyle's War
Mr Bean turns simple everyday tasks into chaotic situations and will leave you in stitches as he creates havoc wherever he goes.
Mr. Bean
Amid an international crisis, a US diplomat contends with her high-profile job as ambassador to the UK and her strained marriage to a political star.
The Diplomat
Explore the relationships between exclusive escorts and their clients, for whom they provide far more than just sex. Known as GFEs, they are women who provide “The Girlfriend Experience”—emotional and sexual relationships at a very high price.
The Girlfriend Experience
New York, 1896. Police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt brings together criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, newspaper illustrator John Moore and secretary Sara Howard to investigate several murders of male prostitutes.
The Alienist
DS Barbara Havers is assigned to work with the upper-crust DI Thomas Lynley to solve murders.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries
The animated daily trials and tribulations of clueless yet clever loner Mr Bean (aided by his best friend Teddy of course!) as he stumbles from one mishap to the next, always finding complex solutions to the simplest of problems.
Mr. Bean: The Animated Series
Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm-workers, craftsmen and gentry at the end of the 19th Century. Lark Rise to Candleford is a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance.
Lark Rise to Candleford
When Eliza Scarlet's father dies, he leaves her penniless, but she resolves to continue his detective agency. To operate in a male-dominated world, though, she needs a partner... step forward a detective known as the Duke. Eliza and The Duke strike up a mismatched, fiery relationship as they team up to solve crime in the murkiest depths of 1880’s London.
Miss Scarlet
Seven strangers from different walks of life - people who would never normally interact - are forced to work together to renovate a derelict community centre. They resent the menial physical labour and they resent each other. But when one of their number gets dragged into a dangerous world of organised crime, they unite in ways none of them thought possible.
The Outlaws
Introduced by renowned English actor Edward Woodward, In Suspicious Circumstances is an anthology of reenactments depicting real-life murder mysteries, some famous and some obscure, exploring cases with elements of miscarriage of justice, unsolved mysteries, and unusual circumstances, often spanning different historical periods.
In Suspicious Circumstances
Cordelia Gray inherits a struggling detective agency after her boss's suicide. Her assistant Edith Sparshott aids her as she navigates the dark underbelly of crime, uncovering clues in complex cases.