Faith Brown
Encyclopedia
Faith Brown is an English actress, singer, comedienne and impressionist
.
singer in Liverpool
's Rialto Ballroom. Subsequently, Brown joined her three brothers in The Carrolls, a group who released several records in the 1960s. Brown has also released several solo recordings.
/ITV
) - a showcase for a generation of impressionists and comics, and Ken Dodd
's World of Laughter (1976). She then became the resident singer on the magic showcase show For My Next Trick on BBC1, alongside Paul Daniels
.
Brown was a regular guest celebrity participant on several British TV games shows, between 1975 and 1979 on Celebrity Squares (ATV/ITV), 1979 and 1990 on Blankety Blank
(BBC) and between 1979 and 1992 she was a regular 'girls' team member on the TV charades game show Give Us a Clue
(Thames
/ITV).
In 1980 she presented The Faith Brown Chat Show (Thames/ITV). Here, using split screen special effects, Brown interviewed herself in a succession of celebrity personas. Her "conversations" with Kate Bush
are especially fondly remembered; the singer was delighted by Brown's impression, and wrote a four page letter of thanks to the comedienne. Other "guests" included Pam Ayres
, Mary Whitehouse
, Margaret Thatcher
, newsreader Angela Rippon
, and singers Barbra Streisand
, Lene Lovich
, Eartha Kitt
, Diana Ross
, and Donna Summer
. Brown was never fully happy with her depiction of Mrs Thatcher and stated in a televised interview with Michael Parkinson
that her fellow impersonator Janet Brown (no relation) did a more believable representation.
Other television appearances at that time include Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show
(Central/ITV) in 1984, and as Flast in the Doctor Who
serial Attack of the Cybermen
, (BBC) 1985. Brown was also featured on This Is Your Life
(Thames/ITV) in 1982.
From 1993 to 1999, Brown was one of two celebrity team members on the daily BBC2 quiz show Today's the Day
hosted by Martyn Lewis
.
In 1996, Brown appeared as the social climbing Anne Bradley in the soap Brookside
(Mersey Television
/Channel Four), and toured the United Kingdom in a production of Summer Holiday, starring alongside Darren Day
.
's musical, Sunset Boulevard
. The production toured until the end of 2002 and a CD single was released featuring the tracks "Sunset Boulevard" (performed by her co-star Earl Carpenter), "With One Look" and "The Perfect Year" (a duet with Carpenter).
In 2004, Brown appeared on the Living TV reality show I'm Famous and Frightened!
, and in 2006, took part in the sixth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. She was the third person voted off, having spent fourteen days in the jungle.
In 2007, Brown toured the United Kingdom in Faith Brown: Up Front, a one-woman show of song, comedy and impressions. Also that year, Brown appeared at the Edinburgh Festival
in Boys In The Buff, a musical revue celebrating the male form. On 10 August 2007, she collapsed on stage, and was replaced by her understudy Anna Stolli for the following performance, leading to fears about her health. Brown subsequently released a statement dismissing these rumours, commenting that she had only fainted due to the temperature of the room.
In 2008, she starred as the main character, The Voice (previously taking over Eve Karpf
), alongside Simon Greenall
and Olly Pike, in the CBBC
show Trapped!
(from 2010 Trapped: Ever After!).
Impressionist (entertainment)
An impressionist or a mimic is a performer whose act consists of imitating the voice and mannerisms of others. The word usually refers to a professional comedian/entertainer who specializes in such performances and has developed a wide repertoire of impressions, including adding to them, often to...
.
Background and Early Career
Born as Eunice Irene Carroll, Faith Brown began her career as a singer at the age of fifteen, backed by a local group. She later became the resident cabaretCabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
singer in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
's Rialto Ballroom. Subsequently, Brown joined her three brothers in The Carrolls, a group who released several records in the 1960s. Brown has also released several solo recordings.
Television career
Brown's television career was launched with appearances on Who Do You Do (1975–1976) (ATVAssociated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
/ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
) - a showcase for a generation of impressionists and comics, and Ken Dodd
Ken Dodd
Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE is a British comedian and singer songwriter, famous for his frizzy hair or “fluff dom” and buck teeth or “denchers”, his favourite cleaner, the feather duster and his greeting "How tickled I am!", as well as his send-off “Lots and Lots of Happiness!”...
's World of Laughter (1976). She then became the resident singer on the magic showcase show For My Next Trick on BBC1, alongside Paul Daniels
Paul Daniels
Paul Daniels, born Newton Edward Daniels on 6 April 1938, is a British magician and television performer. He achieved international fame through his television series The Paul Daniels Magic Show, which ran on the BBC from 1979 to 1994.-Early life:...
.
Brown was a regular guest celebrity participant on several British TV games shows, between 1975 and 1979 on Celebrity Squares (ATV/ITV), 1979 and 1990 on Blankety Blank
Blankety Blank
Blankety Blank is a British comedy game show based on the 1977–1978 Australian game show Blankety Blanks ....
(BBC) and between 1979 and 1992 she was a regular 'girls' team member on the TV charades game show Give Us a Clue
Give Us A Clue
Give Us a Clue is a British televised game show version of charades which was broadcast on ITV from 1979 to 1992. The original host was Michael Aspel from 1979 to 1983, followed by Michael Parkinson from 1984 to 1992. The show featured two teams, one captained by Lionel Blair and the other by Una...
(Thames
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
/ITV).
In 1980 she presented The Faith Brown Chat Show (Thames/ITV). Here, using split screen special effects, Brown interviewed herself in a succession of celebrity personas. Her "conversations" with Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
are especially fondly remembered; the singer was delighted by Brown's impression, and wrote a four page letter of thanks to the comedienne. Other "guests" included Pam Ayres
Pam Ayres
Pam Ayres MBE is an English poet, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to a variety of appearances on TV and radio shows, a one woman touring stage show and performing before the Queen.-Early life:Pam...
, Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse, CBE was a British campaigner against the permissive society particularly as the media portrayed and reflected it...
, Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, newsreader Angela Rippon
Angela Rippon
Angela M. Rippon, OBE, born 12 October 1944, Plymouth, Devon, England, is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter. Rippon presented radio and television news programmes in South West England before moving to BBC One's Nine O'Clock News, becoming a regular presenter in 1975...
, and singers Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Lene Lovich
Lene Lovich
Lene Lovich is an American singer based in England, who first gained attention as part of the New Wave music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her most popular hit single was "Lucky Number", first released in 1979.-Early years:...
, Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, and Donna Summer
Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach...
. Brown was never fully happy with her depiction of Mrs Thatcher and stated in a televised interview with Michael Parkinson
Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...
that her fellow impersonator Janet Brown (no relation) did a more believable representation.
Other television appearances at that time include Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show
Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show
Emu was an anarchic British television puppet of Rod Hull, and after successful appearing on a number of Variety shows, he was given his own Television series on the BBC, then on ITV.-Emu's Broadcasting Company:...
(Central/ITV) in 1984, and as Flast in the Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial Attack of the Cybermen
Attack of the Cybermen
Attack of the Cybermen is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from 5 January to 12 January 1985. It opened Season 22 of the series...
, (BBC) 1985. Brown was also featured on This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
(Thames/ITV) in 1982.
From 1993 to 1999, Brown was one of two celebrity team members on the daily BBC2 quiz show Today's the Day
Today's the Day
Today's the Day was a British television daytime quiz programme that was broadcast on BBC2 from 12 July 1993 until 12 March 1999. The programme was hosted by Martyn Lewis....
hosted by Martyn Lewis
Martyn Lewis (journalist)
Martyn Lewis CBE is a British television news presenter and journalist.-Early life:Lewis was born in Swansea, West Glamorgan, though was educated at the co-educational Dalriada School in Northern Ireland and graduated with a BA degree from Trinity College, Dublin. He then joined BBC Northern...
.
In 1996, Brown appeared as the social climbing Anne Bradley in the soap Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
(Mersey Television
Mersey Television
Lime Pictures, formerly known as Mersey Television, is a British television production company, founded by producer and writer Phil Redmond in the early 1980s....
/Channel Four), and toured the United Kingdom in a production of Summer Holiday, starring alongside Darren Day
Darren Day
Darren Day , is an English actor, singer and television presenter, well known for his West End theatre starring roles.-Early life:His paternal grandfather was a support and warm-up act for George Formby...
.
Later career
In 2001, Brown starred to great acclaim as faded icon Norma Desmond in a touring production of Andrew Lloyd-WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
's musical, Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard (musical)
Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
. The production toured until the end of 2002 and a CD single was released featuring the tracks "Sunset Boulevard" (performed by her co-star Earl Carpenter), "With One Look" and "The Perfect Year" (a duet with Carpenter).
In 2004, Brown appeared on the Living TV reality show I'm Famous and Frightened!
I'm Famous and Frightened!
I'm Famous and Frightened was a Living TV reality TV show in which 8 celebrities stayed for three nights in a "haunted" castle. They had to then do terrifying challenges in order to raise money for charity; each one was evicted until only the winner was left.The first series aired on Friday 12...
, and in 2006, took part in the sixth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. She was the third person voted off, having spent fourteen days in the jungle.
In 2007, Brown toured the United Kingdom in Faith Brown: Up Front, a one-woman show of song, comedy and impressions. Also that year, Brown appeared at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
in Boys In The Buff, a musical revue celebrating the male form. On 10 August 2007, she collapsed on stage, and was replaced by her understudy Anna Stolli for the following performance, leading to fears about her health. Brown subsequently released a statement dismissing these rumours, commenting that she had only fainted due to the temperature of the room.
In 2008, she starred as the main character, The Voice (previously taking over Eve Karpf
Eve Karpf
Eve Karpf is a British actress who trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She has extensive experience as a voice-over actress...
), alongside Simon Greenall
Simon Greenall
Simon Greenall is a British actor, writer and voice artist from Longtown in Cumbria. He has appeared in a wide variety of roles in television, film, radio and the theatre, and is probably best known for his role as Michael in the TV series I'm Alan Partridge and as the voice of headmaster Iqbal in...
and Olly Pike, in the CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
show Trapped!
Trapped! (TV series)
Trapped! is a British television children's game show that has been broadcast on CBBC and BBC One since 28 September 2007.-Trapped! :...
(from 2010 Trapped: Ever After!).