49 Facts About Josette Simon

Josette Simon trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and performed as a 14-year-old in the choir for the world premiere of the finalised Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Josette Simon has continued a career in stage productions, appearing in 50 Royal Shakespeare Company productions, from the single press night performance as a featured character in Salvation Now at the Warehouse theatre in 1982, through to playing Cleopatra in a six-month run of Antony and Cleopatra at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 2017.

The first black woman in an RSC play when she appeared in Salvation Now, Simon has been at the forefront of colour-blind casting, playing roles traditionally taken by white actors, including Maggie, a character who is thought to be based on Marilyn Monroe, in Arthur Miller's After the Fall at the Royal National Theatre in 1990.

Josette Simon's first leading role at the RSC, the first principal part filled by a black woman for the company, was as Rosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost, in 1984.

Josette Simon has played numerous other roles across stage, television, film, and radio.

Josette Simon starred alongside Brenda Fricker in the two-part television series Seekers, written by Lynda La Plante.

Josette Simon has portrayed senior police officers in Silent Witness, Minder, and Broadchurch ; and portrayed a defence lawyer in Anatomy of a Scandal.

Josette Simon won the Evening Standard Best Actress award, a Critics' Circle Theatre Award, and Plays and Players Critic Awards for After the Fall and two film festival awards for her part in Milk and Honey.

Josette Simon was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2000, for services to drama.

Josette Patricia Simon was born in 1959 or 1960 in Leicester.

Josette Simon attended Mellor Street primary school, followed by Alderman Newton's Girls' School.

Josette Simon became interested in acting after getting a place in the choir, at age 14, for the world premiere of the finalised version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, presented in Leicester in 1974.

Josette Simon later appeared in pantomimes before finishing secondary school, and played Martha in a 1976 production of The Miracle Worker directed by Michael Bogdanov at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre.

Alan Rickman, who was in the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, encouraged Josette Simon to apply for the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and she was accepted.

Josette Simon won the part of Dayna Mellanby in the BBC 1 television sci-fi series Blake's 7 after being talent-spotted while still at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Josette Simon played Mellanby in the third and fourth series, originally broadcast between January 1980 and December 1981.

Andrew Muir, author of a book about the series, felt that Josette Simon provided "energy, vitality, innocence, danger, and a real physical presence" to the character.

Josette Simon was invited to return to the role in audio productions by Big Finish but declined, but has played other roles for the company.

Josette Simon featured in two other programmes in 1980: the sitcom The Cuckoo Waltz and the teen drama The Squad.

Josette Simon has performed frequently with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre.

Josette Simon was the first black woman to appear in a Shakespeare play at the RSC.

In 1997, Josette Simon told academic Alison Oddey that working with Michael Gambon and, particularly, Helen Mirren on Antony and Cleopatra provided an early influence on her career.

Josette Simon was with the RSC for two consecutive two-year season cycles.

The central role of a black runner drew on Simon's own experience of being an athlete; the play's author, Louise Page, later related that the play had been rewritten from an ensemble piece, as "the sheer dynamism Josette brought to the role meant that it was her journey through the play with which the audience identified".

Josette Simon has been at the forefront of colour-blind casting, playing roles traditionally taken by white actors.

Josette Simon's first leading role, and the first for a black woman at the RSC, was as Rosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost, directed by Barry Kyle, in 1984.

Josette Simon told Oddey that despite being conscious of discussions about whether audiences would accept a black woman as Rosaline, "I felt that you should be allowed to fail, because if you don't take risks you can't reach higher planes" and that she had focused on her performance rather than debates around her casting, saying that "If I had thought about those things beforehand, I would not have set foot on the stage".

In 1987, Josette Simon appeared for the RSC again, in the lead role of Isabelle in Measure for Measure, directed by Nicholas Hynter; her performance received some critical acclaim, whist other commentators felt it was "underpowered and lacking in emotional intensity".

Goddard commented that "the more well known Josette Simon became, the less compelled reviewers felt to mention race".

Miller attended rehearsals for two weeks, and Josette Simon told Oddey that, like playing Rosaline, meeting Miller was one of the key moments in her career, and the experience helped her to focus on her work and disregard distractions.

Josette Simon portrayed Vittoria in the Royal National Theatre's The White Devil in 1991.

Josette Simon returned to the RSC in 1999 as Queen Elizabeth in Don Carlos.

In 2017, Josette Simon took the role of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra for the RSC.

Michael Billington wrote for The Guardian that "Josette Simon seems born to play Cleopatra and she gives us a hypnotically mercurial figure whose eroticism is expressed through a permanent restlessness", although he felt that Josette Simon employed too many voices in the role.

Josette Simon took the title role in the 1985 BBC Radio 3 production of Mirandolina.

Josette Simon was the lead in David Zane Mairowitz's play Dictator Gal, broadcast on the same station in 1992.

Josette Simon's character was married to an exiled dictator who was dying in hospital.

Josette Simon's character sang a range of songs, including Richard Wagner and Motown compositions in an attempt to revive him.

Josette Simon's performance earned her a Prix Futura Award nomination.

Josette Simon was nominated as Best Actress at the Genie Awards for Milk and Honey, in which she played Joanna, who left Jamaica with her child to work as a nanny in Toronto.

The English Literature scholar Claire Tylee considered that Josette Simon's character was a "credible protagonist", but the film was adversely affected by a mismatch between its thriller and family plotlines.

In 1993, Josette Simon starred alongside Brenda Fricker in the two-part television series Seekers, written by Lynda La Plante.

Nightingale of The Times wrote in a negative review of Jean Genet's play The Maids in 1997 that Josette Simon provided the "one strong performance".

Josette Simon had a recurring role as a defence lawyer in Anatomy of a Scandal in 2022.

Josette Simon's supporting performance in Crossfire was highlighted as one of the few positives in a negative review of the series by Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph.

Josette Simon has played senior police officers in Silent Witness, Minder, and Broadchurch, and has been cast as Chief Commissioner Camberwell in Anansi Boys, which was in production as of May 2022.

Josette Simon plays the saxophone recreationally, and practices Ashtanga yoga.

In 1995, Josette Simon was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by the University of Leicester.

Josette Simon received a Pioneers and Achievers award in 1998, in recognition of being one of the people from Leicester who had "paved the way for the next generations of African Caribbean people to achieve and excel in a diverse range of professions and spheres of influence".