British TV Isn’t Afraid of Aging Women

I’ve always had more than a touch of Anglophilia, and one of the boons of streaming services is the instant availability of a wide variety of British TV series. Binging on everything from the Doctor Who reboot to gritty dramas like Happy Valley, I honed my ability to identify a broad range of accents, from the gulplike rhythm of the Geordie burr to the lilting cadence of Welsh inflections. In the past few years, and as the U.S. political situation went off the rails, I searched for more comforting fare, gravitating toward the TV equivalent of tea and toast — like Agatha Christie’s Marple, Midsomer Murders, and Agatha Raisin — where people fall victim to gruesome murders against the backdrop of the pleasant English countryside, grand aristocratic homes, and stiff upper lips.

Showing these women on screen presents a fuller and more accurate picture of womanhood, proving that life doesn’t end after marriage or menopause.

After dozens of placid hours on the couch with my cat on my lap, I noticed something. There were more older actresses in these shows compared to American TV, often in starring roles, and a lot of them looked, well, older. Unlike their stick-thin American counterparts, with their glossy hair and artificially smooth faces, the women on British TV looked how many everyday women look at that age — a little wrinkled, graying, even paunchy. While some are indeed very pretty, a lot of them just look… normal, like the people you see every day on the street.

Olivia Colman got glammed up after her Oscar nomination for The Favourite, but in shows like Broadchurch and Peep Show, she looks like the mom shopping next to you in the grocery store. On Happy Valley, fifty-somethings Sarah Lancashire and Siobhan Finneran (best known to Americans as the bitter lady’s maid O’Brien on Downton Abbey) have the furrows and softening jawlines of middle-aged women — no cosmetic surgery or blush lenses here. And then there’s 74-year-old Brenda Blethyn, who plays a resolutely dowdy detective in rural Northumberland, complete with her shapeless trenchcoat, in Vera. After hours of viewing shows from across the pond, it was clear that British TV is more willing to put women who are obviously “of a certain age” — and look like it­ — front and center, and we're all better for it.

Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar in "Unforgotten." John Rogers/Mainstreet Pictures

Showing these women on screen presents a fuller and more accurate picture of womanhood, proving that life doesn’t end after marriage or menopause. No doubt some watch Call the Midwife to follow the personal and professional travails of the rotating knot of comely young nurses in London's East End during the 1950s — but I was far more intrigued by the lives of Sister Evangelina, a stout, no-nonsense battle-axe of an Anglican nun played by Pam Ferris and Judy Parfitt’s Sister Monica Jean, the order’s frail, dotty nun-dowager. Ferris is also one of the (admittedly few) reasons to watch Rosemary & Thyme, a frothy treat of a mystery series about a pair of itinerant gardeners who also happen to solve crimes.

Given the scale of the crossover on British and Irish TV, you could be forgiven for thinking there are only 20 working actors across the islands. On the other hand, this provides an opportunity to enjoy their exceptional range and talent. Consider the work of Nicola Walker, a veteran of the U.K.’s small screen. In the spy thriller MI-5 (known in the U.K. as Spooks), she was the brilliant but plain Jane Intelligence Analyst secretly in love with the boss. On the female-led cop show Scott & Bailey, Walker guest-starred as a woman who gradually unravels over the course of the eight-episode series, revealing a traumatic childhood that led her to commit horrific murders. On Unforgotten, she’s back to a law enforcement role as a senior detective juggling cold cases, an aging father, and a tendency to get too emotionally involved in her work. Her partner is attracted to her, but she has far too much professional integrity to get involved with him. On the series, Walker's character has bags under her eyes and forehead creases, which help make her totally believable as an overworked, single, middle-aged cop who’s had her knocks and disappointments in life but quells them as she continues to “get on with it,” as the Brits say.

Fiona Shaw in "Killing Eve." Parisa Taghizadeh/BBCAmerica

Also worth noting, while these women may occasionally pine for a reliable partner, they’re hardly lovelorn. And often, they’re in positions of great power. Fiona Shaw, a veteran of the British stage, was featured in Killing Eve as a cold-blooded but effortlessly charming MI6 bigwig. The character has a grown son and carries on affairs with informants and colleagues alike — but it’s made clear that her true love is her job. Killing Eve also seemed to make a point of featuring cameos by other respected older British actresses, including Zoe Wanamaker as Shaw’s boss and Barbara Flynn as a dryly witty pathologist.

The lesser focus on youth and looks in British TV might be a result of the country’s robust stage tradition, where physical appearance can’t hide a lack of acting chops. British theater has reared such legends as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Eileen Atkins who, in the documentary Tea with the Dames, recalls overhearing a man describing her as not conventionally pretty, but indeed sexy. Perhaps it’s not an accident that Great Britain has had two women as prime ministers (and Ireland has had a woman as president), while here in the U.S. we are still debating whether electing a woman to the presidency is even possible. Still, British TV is far from perfect — there are few older actresses of color on British TV (and fewer people of color in general), although the increasing number of younger ones may bode well for the future.

To be fair, we are seeing more older actresses on American TV in series such as Big Little Lies, Divorce, How to Get Away with Murder, and Veep. But contrast willowy Laura Dern and the trim and youthful-looking Julia Louis-Dreyfus with the rumpled, unapologetically overweight comedian and actress Jo Brand, a star of Getting On and Damned. Whatever the reason, British TV shows highlight how much talent and skill we’re missing out on — in entertainment and everything else — when America insists its leading actresses be lithe, young, and impossibly gorgeous, or at least two out of the three.

Heather Kenny is a Chicago-based travel and culture writer. Follow her on Twitter @heatherkenny.

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