The critically acclaimed series starred Robbie Coltrane as the eponymous criminal psychologist, and went on to win seven TV BAFTAs;[9] Somerville gained a Best Actress nomination for her performance in 1995.
[10] That year also saw the release of Haunted, a horror film directed by veteran filmmaker Lewis Gilbert, in which she played Kate McCarrick.
Also that year, she played Louisa Stockbridge in Gosford Park, a satirical comedy drama set in an English country house in the 1930s.
The film was written by Julian Fellowes and directed by Robert Altman; it went on to be nominated for nine BAFTAs and seven Academy Awards, winning Best Original Screenplay.
[16] She played Val McArdle in four episodes of Daylight Robbery, an ITV crime drama series about four Essex housewives struggling with personal and domestic problems.
[18] The film aired on 12 May on BBC2, and co-starred Janet McTeer as Gertrude Lawrence and Elizabeth McGovern as Ellen Doubleday, the object of du Maurier's unrequited affections.
In 2010, she played Fiona Douglas in sci-fi drama Survivors, a BBC series about a group of people battling for survival on a post-apocalyptic Earth after a devastating influenza epidemic.
In 2012, Somerville starred in ITV drama series Titanic as Louisa, Countess of Manton, a fictional passenger travelling on its ill-fated maiden voyage.
That same year, she featured in A.A. Milne biopic Goodbye Christopher Robin and comedy film The Hippopotamus, adapted from the novel by Stephen Fry.
[26][27] In 1996, she made her first appearance at the National Theatre in a stage adaptation of Dennis Potter's 1979 television play Blue Remembered Hills.
In 2003, she made her third National appearance at the Cottesloe Theatre in Power, a drama set during the reign of Louis XIV's, with Somerville playing Henriette d’Angleterre, youngest daughter of Charles I.
[30][31] In 2022, thirty-three years after her original debut,[32] Somerville returned to the Royal Exchange Theatre in The Glass Menagerie, this time in the role of Amanda Wingfield, receiving praise for her "astonishing" performance.
[34] The production, directed by Atri Banerjee, earned positive reviews from critics, with The Daily Telegraph calling it "powerfully heart-wrenching".