She had minor roles in the films The Search for John Gissing (2001), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Gigolos (2005).

[2] She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made her stage debut in 1964 as Titania in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Other television credits include Dixon of Dock Green, Les Misérables, The Barchester Chronicles (alongside her father), Mansfield Park, Silas Marner, Midsomer Murders, Whitechapel, Agatha Christie's Poirot and Agatha Christie's Marple.

In 1978, she voiced the role of Ophelia in a BBC radio play production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

She has also appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the 1984 holiday television film A Christmas Carol, Sister Cecilia in Stealing Heaven (1988), a crowd member in Martin Scorsese's 2002 crime drama Gangs of New York, Elizabeth I in the 2007 Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code", and Winnie in the BBC drama Happy Valley (2016).