Born: 12th May 1968 (as Catherine Jane Ford)
Episodes Broadcast: 2006, 2008-2010, 2023

Catherine Ford was born in Bloomsbury, London; her father had abandoned the family, so she was raised by her mother, grandmother and godparents. As a child, she battled an obsessive-compulsive disorder, suffering anxiety related to word associations. Ford became interested in acting during her teenaged years, and joined the National Youth Theatre. She gained admission to the Sylvia Young Theatre School, but decided after a week that she was a poor fit there. Ford instead applied to the Central School of Speech and Drama, finally winning a place on her fourth attempt. One of her classmates was Shaun Dingwall, who would later have a recurring role as Pete Tyler in Doctor Who. Ford graduated in 1993 but, by that time, she had already made her television debut in a 1991 episode of Surgical Spirit; she adopted the professional name “Catherine Tate”.

During the Nineties, Tate could be seen on television in programmes such as The Bill, Men Behaving Badly and London's Burning. She also worked regularly in the theatre, eventually joining the Royal Shakespeare Company for its 2000-2001 season. But Tate soon began to garner notice for her stand-up comedy, which she added to her repertoire in 1996. It led to her involvement in projects like Wild West with Dawn French, and Tate quickly became a popular performer at the Edinburgh Festival. In 2003, amidst her burgeoning success, she had daughter Erin with her then-partner, stage manager Twig Clark.

Tate was handed the reins of the sketch-driven The Catherine Tate Show in 2004

Tate's acclaim soon led the BBC to hand her the reins of her own programme, and the sketch-driven The Catherine Tate Show debuted in 2004. It wasn't long before the catchphrase of her teenaged character Lauren Cooper -- “Am I bovvered?” -- was on the lips of a nation. Nonetheless, Tate had not abandoned drama, and she made appearances in series like Agatha Christie's Marple and Bleak House. A number of movie roles came in 2006, including Starter For Ten and Love And Other Disasters.

2006 was also the year that Tate caught the viewing public off guard when she stepped into the TARDIS. A cameo appearance opposite David Tennant's Tenth Doctor at the end of the Doctor Who season finale, Doomsday, presaged her fully-fledged involvement as Donna Noble in The Runaway Bride at Christmas. Executive producer Russell T Davies had assumed that this would be the extent of Tate's interest in Doctor Who. But the actress had developed a winning rapport with Tennant, and she was also preparing to wind down The Catherine Tate Show. As a result, plans for Doctor Who's 2008 season were hastily revised to bring Donna back into the Doctor's life in the premiere episode, Partners In Crime. Tate remained on the show until that year's finale, the appropriately-titled Journey's End, by which time her stubborn but well-meaning temp had shattered the audience's preconceptions about the characteristics of a successful Doctor Who companion. She then returned at Christmas 2009 for Tennant's final story, The End Of Time.

In 2011, Tate and Tennant were reunited on stage for a run in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at Wyndham's Theatre. The same year, Tate joined the cast of the American version of The Office. Other television during the decade included a starring role in Big School and voice acting in the DuckTales cartoon (which also featured Tennant), while Gulliver's Travels and the animated Asterix And Obelix: Mansion Of The Gods were amongst Tate's films. She occasionally returned to her characters from The Catherine Tate Show -- including a successful live tour in 2016 and 2017 -- and reprised Donna Noble for a series of Tenth Doctor audio plays from Big Finish Productions, starting with Technophobia in 2016.

In the Twenties, Tate contributed to the animated series The Brilliant World Of Tom Gates, and then starred in the sitcom Hard Cell, which she co-wrote and co-directed. She also revisited one of her classic characters from The Catherine Tate Show, taking to the silver screen for The Nan Movie. During 2023, Tate returned to television as Donna Noble, rejoining Tennant as part of Doctor Who's sixtieth anniversary celebrations.