Since her early days in Strike It Rich and as student Nurse McGrellis in Casualty, Julie Graham has become a regular on our screens. Although I never watched her big roles in William & Mary, The Bletchley Circle, Bonekickers, Survivors and Benidorm, she has featured often enough in my personal TV diet to claim Treasure status. Perhaps I may have been swayed by an innocent crush I had on her in the Nineties but the actor’s appeal goes way beyond that.
Whilst I would have seen her appearance in Spender a few years previously it probably all started in 1994 when, along with fellow young gun Tom Hollander, she played a Scottish investigative journalist at Michael Elphick’s Darlington news agency in Harry. It ran for a few engaging seasons, and around the same time Julie also had a part in Bugs, a sci-fi crime caper series. In the episode she portrayed an apparent model who steals a supercar during the filming of a commercial. Coincidentally she simultaneously did for real a number of TV adverts for the Peugeot 106!
Around the turn of the millennium there were further roles in dramas which failed to grab me. She was in Glasgow-set medical drama Life Support, At Home With the Braithwaites and starred as a sex therapist in ITV’s Between the Sheets. In Christmas 2011 she was a blousy mum and wife of the unrelated Stephen Graham (!) in comedy-drama Lapland (which I did watch) and must have had some fun playing a human survivor facing the Cybermen in Doctor Who earlier this year.
Of course I like a bit of a crime thriller so enjoyed watching Julie Graham in the Scottish mystery One of Us in 2016 and as the Procurator Fiscal often drafted to Lerwick in the Beeb’s superior cop series Shetland. But her meatiest part this year must have been as a woman who is seduced by her daughter’s boyfriend in Channel 5’s Penance. Is he decent or deadly? Don’t succumb to temptation, Julie! I won’t reveal the outcome but as ever she was compulsive viewing.
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