Education
Central School of Speech and Drama.
Central School of Speech and Drama.
She is known for her roles as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited and as the mother of John Merrick in The Elephant Manitoba As a child actress in several films she was billed as Sarah Nicholls. In her early 20s, she appeared in David Lynch"s The Elephant Manitoba, Michael Palin"s The Missionary and most famously as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.
Since then, she has worked almost exclusively in television and theatre.
Debuting in Michael Lindsay-Hogg"s original staging of Whose Life Is lieutenant Anyway? in 1978, she went on to perform in Robert Strura"s revival of Three Sisters with Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Daldry"s acclaimed National Theatre version of J.B. Priestley"s An Inspector Calls and in the Olivier Award-winning productions of Pravda, with The Elephant Manitoba co-star Sir Anthony Hopkins and Terry Johnson"s Hysteria. Her supporting performances in the 2008 West End revivals of Noël Coward"s The Vortex and Harley Granville Barker"s Waste earned her the 2009 Clarence Derwent Award from Equity.
She also played the conniving art critic Rivera in the Royal National Theatre production of the Howard Barker drama, Scenes from an Execution. She appeared in the 1995 television Persuasion an adaptation of Jane Austen"s novel.
She has made guest appearances on several television mystery series, including Kavanagh Queen's Counsel, Prime Suspect, Midsomer Murders, Lewis, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries ("May and June", 1997), Foyle"s War, Second Sight starring Clive Owen, and the 2012 Christmas episode of Downton Abbey (as the rather disagreeable Marchioness of Flintshire), a role she reprised for the 2014 season.
1978: Whose Life Is lieutenant Anyway? 1981: The Cherry Orchard
1983: The Beautiful Participant of Myself
1984: Pravda
1985: The Seagull
1991: Three Sisters
1993: An Inspector Calls
1993: Hysteria
1994: Rutherford & Son
1997: Dona Rosita the Spinster
2005: Three Women and a Piano Tuner
2007: The Vortex
2008: Waste
2009: When the Rain Stops Falling
2012: Scenes from an Execution.