Monica Dolan is a BAFTA and Olivier Award winning actor whose work spans television, film and stage. Monica was born in March 1969 into an Irish family and has a sister Gabrielle. She studied drama at the Guildhall School in London, graduating in 1991 and soon afterwards went into television. A supremely versatile character actress, she has tended to specialize in stunning portrayals of the darker side of life, as real-life stalker Maria Marchese in U Be Dead (2009), demure but deadly Miss Gilchrist in the superior Poirot adaptation Poirot: After the Funeral (2006) and, particularly, as serial killer Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult (2011) for which she, along with fellow Guildhall graduate Dominic West, deservedly received a BAFTA award.

Filmography

• 2026Elsinore — Linda
• 2026Onwards and Sideways — Liz Evans
• 2026The Lost Children of Tuam — Catherine Corless
• 2024A Ghost Story For Christmas: Woman of Stone — Mrs. Dorman
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office — Jo Hamilton
• Smoggie Queens — Paula
• 2024This Time Next Year — Connie
• The Change — Carmel
• 2023Typist Artist Pirate King — Audrey Amiss
• 2022A Woman Walks Into A Bank — Narrator
• 2022Empire of Light — Rosemary Bates
• 2022My Name Is Leon — Maureen
• Sherwood — Ann Branson
• The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe — Anne Darwin
• 2021Cyrano — Marie
• 2021The Dig — May Brown
• Alan Bennett's Talking Heads — Lorna
• 2020Days of the Bagnold Summer — Sue
• 2020Rialto — Claire
• 2019National Theatre Live: All About Eve — Karen Richards
• 2019Official Secrets — Fiona Bygate
• A Very English Scandal — Marion Thorpe
• Hang Ups — Alison Jones
• 2017Fern — Woman
• Strike — Leonora Quine
• Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories — Dr Marshall, Café Manager, Nora, Miranda Walker
• The Witness for the Prosecution — Janet McIntyre
• 2015Eye in the Sky — Angela Northman
• The Casual Vacancy — Tess Wall
• 2015The Falling — Miss Martha Alvaro
• Wolf Hall — Alice More
• Inside No. 9 — May
• 2014Pride — Marion
• W1A — Tracey Pritchard
• 2013Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa — Angela
• 2013Complicit — Judith
• 2013Kick-Ass 2 — Tommy's Mum
• 2013Out of Darkness
• The Escape Artist — Eileen Morris
• 2012Sightseers — Janice
• Appropriate Adult — Rose West
• Black Mirror — Janet McCardle, CS Linda Grace
• DCI Banks — Maggie Forrest
• Death in Paradise — Patricia Lawrence
• 2011Meconium — Kel (voice)
• 2010Excluded — Amanda
• Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge — Angela
• 2010Never Let Me Go — Nurse
• 2010The Arbor — Ann Hamilton
• 2009Occupation — Nicky Swift
• Occupation — Nicky Swift
• 2009U Be Dead — Maria Marchese
• 2009Within the Whirlwind — Pitkowskaya
• 2008King Lear — Regan
• 2007The History of Mr Polly
• 2005Guernsey — Claire
• 2005Wallis & Edward — Elizabeth
• 2003She Stoops to Conquer — Miss Kate Hardcastle
• Tipping the Velvet — Alice Astley
• 1999Topsy-Turvy — Miss Barnes
• 1998The Gift — Jo
• Midsomer Murders — Imogen Stroud
• 1996A Midsummer Night's Dream — Hermia
• Dalziel and Pascoe — Megan Lowry
• Agatha Christie's Poirot — Miss Gilchrist / Cora Gallaccio
• A Ghost Story for Christmas — Mrs. Dorman
• Book Club — Jane

Appearances as themselves (1)

• 2025The Jubilee of '77: Pomp, Pageantry & Parties — Self (Narrator)