Emma Kennedy

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Emma Kennedy bigraphy, stories - English actress

Emma Kennedy : biography

28 May 1967 –

Emma Kennedy (born Elizabeth Emma Williams 28 May 1967, Corby, Northamptonshire) is an English actress, writer and television presenter.

Cookery

She took part in Celebrity MasterChef in 2012, winning the final, after a week of cookery based tasks, in which ex-footballer Danny Mills and TV presenter Michael Underwood also participated Her winning Celebrity MasterChef menu consisted of a starter of pea, mint and ricotta ravioli with pancetta butter and pea shoots. This was followed by a main dish of pan-fried turbot topped with samphire and served with vegetable-filled leek cannelloni, crushed roast potatoes and a beurre blanc sauce, and a dessert of île flottante – poached meringue in crème anglaise with almond praline topping and shortbread biscuits.

Early life and education

The daughter of teachers, The Stage, n.d. she was educated at Hitchin Girls’ School, a comprehensive, and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. At Oxford in 1987, she worked with (among others) Richard Herring and Stewart Lee in comedy troupes the Seven Raymonds and The Oxford Revue. After graduating she trained as a solicitor, and practised as a city solicitor for three years until 1995., St Edmund Hall website Kennedy has said: "I was rubbish at it. People used to come in wanting to sue the pants off of someone and I’d stare at them and say ‘Let it go’, which isn’t what you should be doing if you’re a litigator."

Writing career

Kennedy has written for radio, television and the theatre. Her first book, How To Bring Up Your Parents, loosely based on her blog, came out in August 2007, while her second, The Tent, The Bucket and Me, recounting her childhood camping experiences, was published in April 2009. Kennedy has also written children’s books. Three books in the Wilma Tenderfoot series have appeared: Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts (published July 2009), Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Putrid Poison (July 2010) and Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Fatal Phantom (November 2010). I Left My Tent In San Francisco, the follow-up to The Tent, The Bucket and Me, appeared in May 2011. Kennedy is currently working on a new project called Strange Hill High, a new animated series.

Acting career

Kennedy first met close friend Mel Giedroyc, who was appearing with the Cambridge Footlights, at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988.Adam Jacques The Independent, 7 September 2008 Later she became a script editor for Giedroyc’s double act with Sue Perkins, and for the Mel and Sue series Late Lunch, Kennedy worked as a writer. Kennedy presented the last series of The Real Holiday Show on Channel 4 in 2000.

She has since made appearances in TV comedies Goodness Gracious Me, This Morning With Richard Not Judy (again with Lee and Herring), Jonathan Creek alongside Alan Davies and Caroline Quentin, People Like Us (with Chris Langham) and hit BBC comedy The Smoking Room, along with appearing in several of The Mark Steel Lectures, as well as in several plays and radio shows. She was also a movie reviewer on Five’s Terry and Gaby Show. In addition to this, she has made several appearances on Big Brother’s Little Brother.

She provided voices for The Comic Side of 7 Days and was a regular on the BBC Radio 2 comedy That Was Then, This Is Now with Richard Herring (in which she was routinely referred to as "TV’s Emma Kennedy"). She appeared in the film Notes on a Scandal and also appears in the Five series Suburban Shootout and Suburban Shootout 2: Clackers at Dawn. She appeared as a regular on the popular podcast As It Occurs To Me until June 2011, when the series ended.http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/as_it_occurs_to_me/]. Retrieved 15 August 2011. Active in Comic Relief, Kennedy, with Emma Freud, was involved in setting up the kazoo orchestra concert at the Royal Albert Hall,Nick Curtis Evening Standard, 10 March 2011 on 14 March 2011, which broke the Guinness World record for the largest such ensemble., BBC Press Office, 15 March 2011,