Susannah Fielding
Fielding's reputation was made on stage. She won the 2014 Ian Charleson Award, which recognises classical work by young actors, for playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice at the Almeida, and that grounding shows in how she handles a camera: she trusts a held pause far more than a screen-trained actor usually does.
On screen the career has run mostly through British television, and the parts keep asking for the same difficult thing, a woman maintaining a professional surface while something underneath is visibly going wrong. From 2019 to 2021 she co-starred with Steve Coogan in the Alan Partridge revival, and it remains the work to know her by, an exercise in reacting to a disaster without ever playing the reaction for laughs. That show is not among the credits listed here.
The rest is the useful, unheadlined middle of British drama. Tamara Valentine across the Bath-set mysteries of McDonald & Dodds, Fran in The Cleaner, Olivia in Who Is Erin Carter?, Lady Castlemaine in The Great Fire, Katherine in Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile. The CBS sitcom The Great Indoors gave her an American network run, which is a different discipline again, four cameras and a studio audience. Her recent credits, Man vs Baby and Deep Cover, suggest the comedy side is currently winning, and on the evidence that is the right call.
Movies (4)
TV (8)
Where to start with Susannah Fielding
The best screen work she has done is the Alan Partridge revival, which is not among the credits listed here, so treat the rest as routes toward the same skill.
Of what is here, McDonald & Dodds is the most sustained. It is a comfortable ITV mystery and she plays the senior officer who has to be smarter than the format allows, which is a thankless job done well. The Great Indoors shows the comic timing in its most exposed form, with a live audience and nowhere to hide.
For the films, Death on the Nile is the glossiest, though the part is small. The Great Fire is the best period showcase, The Cleaner is the sharpest half-hour of comedy she has been given, and Who Is Erin Carter? is the straightforward thriller option. Man vs Baby is the newest and closest in tone to the Partridge material.