Katherine Parkinson makes the apparently sensible woman worth watching for her own temper and disappointments. We rate her most when comedy leaves room for hurt; Rivals gives her both, though not enough time.
Fi1m perspective
In Rivals (2024), Katherine Parkinson lets Lizzie Vereker be irritated and vain without making her hurt less important. There is plenty of flirting to attend to, but she gives us reasons to care about the woman doing it. We felt for Lizzie because Parkinson made those less agreeable feelings worth taking seriously. It is the quality we value most in her work: the apparently sensible woman gets to have troubles of her own, rather than simply look askance at everyone else.
The familiar casting took hold with Jen Barber, the IT manager in The IT Crowd (2006–2013), her television breakthrough. Playing the straight woman among eccentric colleagues requires timing as well as restraint, and Parkinson’s strength is to make that position funny without losing the vulnerability. Doc Martin (2005–2009) had given her the recurring role of receptionist Pauline Lamb; Humans (2015–2018) later gave her a dramatic lead as Laura Hawkins. We are interested in that shift towards drama because the vulnerability is already part of what makes her comedy work.
Rivals gives that combination a welcome place in an unabashedly adult soap. Alongside Nafessa Williams’s Cameron Cook and Bella Maclean’s Taggie O’Hara, Lizzie helps give the programme emotional stakes worth following through all the commotion. The caveat is the writing’s appetite for another strand: we wanted longer with these women, not another plot to service. Parkinson helps make the indulgence worthwhile, but there are stretches when the crowded storytelling becomes tiresome.
Theatre has remained part of her work alongside television, and Laura Wade wrote the play Home, I’m Darling (2018) with Parkinson in mind. That role, Judy, draws on her strength in work that combines comedy and drama. We would welcome more screen roles written with that kind of attention to her, especially ones that leave room for both temper and disappointment. Start with Rivals, and be prepared to resent the time spent away from Lizzie.
Biography
Katherine Parkinson is an English actress. Born on 9 March 1978 in Hounslow, London, she studied classics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
She is best known for playing Jen Barber in the Channel 4 series The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which she won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance in 2014 and British Comedy Awards. Other television roles include appearances in Doc Martin (2005–2009) and Humans (2015–2018). On stage she has performed in The Seagull (2007), Cock (2009) and Home, I’m Darling (2018), the last earning an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. Film credits include The Boat That Rocked (2009) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018). She played Lizzie Vereker in the series Rivals (2024).
