Biography

Training at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama , she left to play a borstal girl in Mai Zeterrling's feature film Scrubbers at 18. Brought up in TV studios and on film sets as her parents, Pauline Yates and Donald Churchill were well known actor/writers. Donald wrote over 30 plays for television and Pauline worked extensively and perhaps is best known as Reggie's wife in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin staring Leonard Rossiter. Working in London primarily she also has family bases in Liverpool / North West where she regularly films. Most recently seen as Barnaby's Nanny in the uplifting Christmas feature film Nativity Rocks directed by Nativity films creator and Coventry champion, Debbie Isitt for Mirrorball Films. She worked on Sky's Curfew and Agatha Raisin and is known primarily for playing Matron Ramsay in BBC's Call The Midwife. Jemma also played cruel Nanny Lyons ( yes , another Nanny!) in Upstairs Downstairs for the BBC filmed in Cardiff. She has many connections with the world of DOoctor Who and appears in Peter Davisons' 50th Anniversary Doctor Who spoof for the BBC Fiveish Doctors Reboot in which she plays herself . She records regularly for science fiction/Doctor Who audio company Big Finish. Jemma can often be seen on British TV guesting in Red Dwarf, Doctors , Midsomer Murders ,Jonathan Creek ,Holby, Emmerdale and many other UK drama series and soaps. She enjoys working on independent movies and new writing and has recently worked on Deny Everything , Burn The Clock and Between Places. She produced and starred in Beached and created Two Tree Island Productions with screenwriter Elizabeth Heery which won the Best Short Fiction Film at The Southend Film Festival 2012. Jemma's first love is theatre. Creating the stage role of Mrs. Bevan, headteacher in Nativity ! The Musical with Debbie Isitt ( which then led to her being cast in the feature film Nativity Rocks!). In 2019 she created a new role and UK premiered Birthdays Past. Birthdays Present, a new comedy play written and directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn. This fulfilled a lifelong ambition to work with Ayckbourn , who reached his celebratory 80th birthday during the run . The play was due to tour New York in the spring of 2021. She hopes it is merely a postponement. She also records audio books , commercials and dubs over foreign language documentaries.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jemma Churchill