[1] Tyson was born in Kingston-upon-Thames on 12 June 1965, the daughter of an English social worker mother and a Trinidadian barrister father.
[5] Her other films include Business as Usual (1987), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), Priest (1994) and The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001).
She played headmistress Miss Gayle in the BBC One school drama Grange Hill, and featured in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale as single mother Andrea Hayworth.
Recorded as a live event in Liverpool City Centre on 16 December 2007, it was broadcast several times over the Christmas period and repeated the following year.
In September 2009, Tyson enrolled at the adult learning centre City Lit on an access to higher education course in creative studies.
[10] In 2021, Tyson appeared in Channel 4 film Help playing Poll, an elderly resident of a care home during the Covid-19 pandemic; the following year she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
In 2024 she played Sam in Luna Carmoon's debut feature Hoard,[12] and Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul in Dune: Prophecy.