Clare Perkins

Clare Perkins is an English actress who is known for her roles as Denise Boulter in Family Affairs and Ava Hartman in EastEnders.

TV
Perkins' first role was as Opal in the 1991 TV film Hallelujah Anyhow in the Screen Two strand. On TV she has appeared in Family Affairs, All in the Game, Pig Heart Boy, Casualty, EastEnders, Men Behaving Badly, Big Women, and Clapham Junction.

She played the role of Ava Hartman in EastEnders.

She played Kerene Nagashi in the Amazon fantasy series The Wheel of Time.

In 2021, she appeared in the horror film Censor, and stars in the TV comedy-drama The Outlaws, which was first broadcast in that year.

Radio
Perkins has been a member of the BBC Radio Drama Company, and played the character of Mel for eight years in the BBC World Service soap Westway.

In 2011 she performed in many radio dramas for Radio 4, including The Winter House, Landfall, Corrinne Come Back and Gone, and Best Intentions.

From 2021 she played Denise Metcalf, a veterinary nurse, in the long-running radio soap opera The Archers.

Film
Her film credits include Jill in the Palme d'Or-winning Ladybird, Ladybird (Ken Loach), Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh), Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb) and 7 Lives. She played Beverly in the film Bullet Boy, which opened the London Film Festival in 2004; she won Best Actress for this role at the Screen Nation Awards.

Stage
Perkins has appeared on stage in many theatres, such as the Royal Court, Young Vic, National Theatre, and Soho Theatre. Perkins was in two West End productions in 2019 - Emilia which transferred from The Globe, and Sweat, which transferred from the Donmar Warehouse, with the consequence that at one point her face was on the front of two West End theatres simultaneously for a month, The Vaudeville and The Gielgud; it is believed that she is the only actress to achieve this.

Television
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