[4] She was Betty in Touched[5] and sang the role of Clara Twain in White Suit Blues at The Old Vic, both directed by Sir Richard Eyre.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Kay Adshead appeared in lead roles in fringe and experimental theatre productions and had several guest appearances in television programmes including The Bill, Dick Turpin, Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Over To Pam, an episode of Victoria Wood's sitcom dinnerladies, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, an early episode of One Foot in the Grave, Mother’s Ruin, and Family Affairs.
She was Sissy in People Are Living There with Margaret Tyzack at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, Diaphanta in The Changeling, and Avril in Semi-Detached at the Bristol Old Vic with Pete Postlethwaite.
Adshead has directed plays including On the Verge by Eric Overmyer at The Man in The Moon, The Possibilities by Howard Barker, Fen by Caryl Churchill and Entertaining Strangers by David Edgar, all at The Lyric Hammersmith Studio.
She devised and directed The Enquiry and The London Summer (two shorts) and If Anyone Recognises These Young People, all at the Roundhouse studio.