Amelia Bullmore is a fine ensemble actor, equally at home with prickly professionals and broad comedy. We value her most when a drama gives several strong personalities room, as Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women does.
Fi1m perspective
When the women make music together in Riot Women (2025), Amelia Bullmore’s Yvonne helps make the band worth caring about. She is a fine ensemble actor: alongside Tamsin Greig’s Holly and Lorraine Ashbourne’s Jess, she gives us another woman allowed to be angry without having to be tidy or likeable. We were moved by the band because, after so much pressure to cope, these women were giving time to something they wanted. The pleasure depends on their differences, and Bullmore belongs in that company.
Her no-nonsense professionals can make it easy to overlook the comedy. Before DCI Gill Murray in Scott & Bailey (2011–2014), there was sketch work and Sonja opposite Steve Coogan in I'm Alan Partridge (2002). We would not treat the move into police drama as a promotion from less demanding work. Bullmore also contributed scripts to Scott & Bailey, giving her a second job within the same programme. The writing deserves attention in its own right, rather than being used to explain every good acting decision.
State of Play (2003), in which she plays Helen Preger, is a strong recommendation for anyone following her supporting work. Paul Abbott’s six-part thriller makes its newsroom convincing, and we rated its ensemble among its chief pleasures. Our enthusiasm comes with a reservation: the complicated story sometimes has us keeping track when we would rather stay with a character. We recommend it for the whole cast, without pretending that Bullmore’s contribution alone accounts for its success.
Sally Wainwright remains a useful name to follow through Bullmore’s work, from Vicky Fleming in Happy Valley (2014) to Yvonne in Riot Women. In the latter, Joanna Scanlan and Rosalie Craig have the most conspicuous performances, but the other women matter just as much to the band. Here, Wainwright sometimes explains what her actors have already made clear. Bullmore is part of an ensemble we would happily trust with less help from the script. Start with Riot Women, and forgive the occasional unnecessary explanation.
Biography
Amelia Bullmore is an English actress and writer. Born on 31 January 1964 in Chelsea, London, she studied drama at the University of Manchester. She began her career in the late 1980s and has worked extensively in television, film and theatre.
Bullmore is known for playing Steph Barnes in Coronation Street (1990–1995), Sonja in I'm Alan Partridge (2002), and DCI Gill Murray in Scott & Bailey (2011–2014), for which she also wrote episodes. Other television roles include appearances in Happy Valley (2016), Gentleman Jack (2019) and The Crown (2016). She played Yvonne in the 2025 BBC series Riot Women.
As a playwright, her first stage play Mammals (2005) won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is married to actor Paul Higgins.
