Charlotte Coleman

The New London Performing Arts Centre introduced the Charlotte Coleman Scholarship in 2003. A showcase event is held every November from which one performer is chosen to receive the award. All NLPAC members are eligible for the prize of a year’s classes in dance, drama and music.

On 13 November 2001, Coleman visited her family where they watched a film together. Her father later stated that she had been in great spirits because of her new flat in Holloway, north London, which she had decorated, and there was a possibility of a career upturn after a few years of a stall. Later that evening she complained of feeling unwell, but went home to her flat against her parents’ advice. The next morning, Wednesday, 14 November 2001, her parents telephoned her to see if she was feeling better; but there was no reply. Concerned, her mother went to Coleman’s flat only to find her lying unconscious on the floor; her asthma inhaler was in a different room. She was taken by ambulance to Whittington Hospital in north London, where she was pronounced dead on arrival from a massive attack of bronchial asthma.

Coleman played Scarlett in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) with Hugh Grant, Simon Callow and Kristin Scott Thomas. She received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for this part, losing to Thomas. Coleman continued to act in films throughout the 1990s with her last major film being Jasmin Dizdar’s Beautiful People (1999), set in London in 1993, at the time of the Yugoslav Wars, playing the role of Portia Thornton.

Coleman portrayed the character of the teenage Lorna in Our Own Kind (Roy MacGregor), at the Bush Theatre in London (April 1991). She co-starred with Kevin Whately, Nisha Nayar and Jane Horrocks.

In 1990, Coleman appeared as Jess, a teenage girl from Lancashire brought up by a strict Pentecostal mother, in the acclaimed BBC television drama Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based on Jeanette Winterson’s novel of the same name. Coleman won a Royal Television Society, Best Actress award and was nominated for a BAFTA for her portrayal of the young lesbian character. She also read the novel for release by BBC Audiobooks. Other television appearances in the 1980s and ’90s included roles in Thames Television’s The Bill and Central Independent Television’s Inspector Morse, the short-lived comedy series Freddie and Max, with Anne Bancroft, a drama about homelessness, Sweet Nothing and another lesbian role, as Barbara Gale in the political satire Giving Tongue (1996).

She also appeared in Simon Nye’s sitcom How Do You Want Me? (1998–2000), alongside Dylan Moran and Emma Chambers, and voiced the lead female character, Primrose, in the animated adaptation of Brambly Hedge. Coleman’s final television appearance was in the adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Double Act, where she played the twins’ teacher, Miss Debenham.

In 1987 Coleman’s boyfriend, Jonathan Laycock, died as the result of a cycling accident. He was 23 years old. After his death Coleman went through periods of depression, and developed the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia.

This was soon followed by her role as the teenage rebel Marmalade Atkins, firstly in Marmalade Atkins in Space (a one-off drama shown in 1981), and then in two series, Educating Marmalade (1982–83) and Danger: Marmalade at Work (1984). All three were made by Thames Television and written by Andrew Davies.

Coleman’s first major television role was as Sue in Southern Television’s Worzel Gummidge. This ran for four series (and a Christmas special) from 1978 to 1981 on the ITV network. Other early work included A Choice of Evils (Play for Today, BBC, 1977) and Two People (London Weekend Television, 1979), as Emma Moffatt). She had a crush on Stephen Garlick, her co-star in Two People. For the role, she had to choose a stuffed toy for Emma to carry; she named it “Haggis” and still had it when interviewed in 1990.

Charlotte Ninon Coleman (3 April 1968 – 14 November 2001) was an English actress best known for playing Scarlett in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, Jess in the television drama Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and her childhood roles of Sue in Worzel Gummidge and the character Marmalade Atkins.

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