Liz Crowther is an English theatre actress. Her father was the actor, comedian and presenter Leslie Crowther and her mother was Jean Crowther, actress and dancer.
Theatre work
Beginning her stage career in 1966, Crowther debuted with London Festival Ballet, playing Clara, the lead role in the annual production of The Nutcracker. At the time, she was training at Arts Educational Schools, London, where she studied from ages 10–17. She later went on to train at École Jacques Lecoq, Paris, where she focused primarily on mime and physical theatre. Since then, Crowther has featured in over a hundred theatre productions, touring in England as well as performing internationally. Among Crowther's later theatre work are productions of A Passage to India, Running Wild, Oliver Twist and Kite as part of the London International Mime Festival. Working with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, Crowther was cast in productions of Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl, John Webster's The White Devil, Massinger's The City Madam, and Weiss' the Marat/Sade, a 'reimagined' version of Cardenio by Gregory Doran, Song of Songs and The Witch of Edmonton by Dekker and Ford. Crowther played the title role in Richard III, performing the show and conducting workshops on tour across the US, with ‘Actors from the London Stage’. She has also performed in Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Appearing in over twenty-five plays for the same theatre, Crowther's credits at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, include Middlemarch Trilogy, The Memorandum, Bodies, What the Heart Feels, Four Attempted Acts and King Lear. Elsewhere, Crowther has appeared in Cyrano de Bergerac, Blithe Spirit, Mr Whatnot, The Elephant Man, Piaf, Wait Until Dark and David Copperfield, Abigail’s Party, Communicating Doors, The Real Thing, and Be My Baby and Pat and Margaret. Finally, Crowther's noteworthy appearances in London's West End include The Country Wife, Gambling, Onassis, Animal Farm and Ducktastic, written by comedy double-act The Right Size and directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Television and film work
Although primarily a stage performer, Crowther has also made film and television appearances. She first appeared as Lucy in ABC's 1967 production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Later, she featured in Shoestring, Watching,Slinger's DayFrench Fields, The Dumping Ground, Outnumbered, Mansfield Park, Holby City, London’s Burning, Miss Marple, EastEnders and A Very Peculiar Practice. Beyond these appearances, Crowther was a regular cast member in soap operaFamily Affairs, playing Annie Hart, from its debut in 1997, until 1999. She also played Sgt Jane Kendall in The Bill for nine months in 1993. In May 2020, she appeared in an episode of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Jenny Morgan. In film, Crowther has most recently played Romola Garai's mother in The Unicorn, a short film by Penelope Skinner. She has also featured in Funseekers and The Thirty-Nine Steps.
Charity work
Crowther works with Scene & Heard, a playwriting charity committed to benefiting disadvantaged children in Somers Town, Kings Cross, London, performing alongside other volunteer theatre professionals. She also works as a trustee and volunteer at Garrick's Temple to Shakespeare in Hampton, Richmond.
