Kathy Burke Audiobooks

Cannes winner, sketch-show great, and here her own narrator: A Mind of My Own

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.6/5 average

1 listener rating

Who is Kathy Burke?

Kathy Burke is an English actress and comedian, born in 1964, and one of the most instantly recognisable performers of her generation. She made her name in the great British sketch tradition, appearing in French and Saunders and alongside Harry Enfield in Harry Enfield’s Television Programme and Harry Enfield & Chums, while sitcom audiences knew her as Magda in Absolutely Fabulous and, from 1999 to 2001, as Linda La Hughes in Gimme Gimme Gimme – a role that brought her a British Comedy Award and two BAFTA nominations.

There has always been serious dramatic weight behind the comedy. Burke made her film debut in the 1982 drama Scrubbers, and her performance as Valerie in Nil by Mouth in 1997 won her Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, along with a BAFTA nomination. After devoting much of the 2000s to directing for the theatre, she returned to film in the 2010s with the likes of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and since 2019 she has fronted a series of Channel 4 documentaries, including Kathy Burke’s All Woman, Money Talks and Growing Up.

Kathy Burke in audiobooks

Burke’s career has been built on voice: characters caught in a phrase, comedy rooted in the way people actually talk. That makes audio a natural home for her, and A Mind of My Own, her title in our catalogue, promises exactly what it says. This is a performer who has moved between broad sketch comedy, Cannes-garlanded drama and documentaries asking blunt questions about womanhood, money and growing up, and the same unvarnished honesty runs through the lot.

For UK listeners the appeal is straightforward: few figures in British entertainment are as reliably direct or as warmly funny, and time spent in her company tends to fly. Expect plain speaking, sharp observation and not a scrap of pretension.