Charlotte Spencer

**Charlotte Spencer** (born 26 September 1991) is a British actress, singer and dancer. She is known for playing the female lead in *The Living and the Dead*.[1][2] Screen International named her a Star of Tomorrow 2015.[3]

## Personal life

She was born in Harlow,
Essex,[3][4][5]
to Peter and Karen. She has a younger sister and brother.[6]
Spencer said of her background "I come from a working class background; my
dad’s a builder and my mum works in a school".[7]
She started ballet aged 3 and has wanted to perform since then.[7]
At the age of 11, her parents sent her to a drama school in London, at the Sylvia Young Theatre School in
Marylebone.[3]
Charlotte's parents remortgaged their house to support her acting career.[6]
As of 2016 she lives with her parents when not working as an actor,[6]
working with her grandmother at a charity shop and helping with the choir at
her mother's infants school. She has a dog, Chip.[6]

## Acting career

### Theatre

Spencer in the original London cast of Mary Poppins, Left to
right (FRONT): Poppy Lee Friar, Jack Montgomery, Perry
Millward, Harry Stott, Ben Watton, Jake Catterall, Nicola Bowman. Left to right
(BACK): Charlotte Spencer, Faye Spittlehouse, Carrie
Fletcher, with songwriter Robert
B. Sherman. (Photo Date: 19 July 2004)

She got her acting break in *Mary Poppins* aged 12, appearing as Jane
Banks in Richard Eyre's 2004 production of the musical.[3]
In 2009, she played Bet in Oliver!.[8]
In 2013, Eyre again cast Spencer, this time as Christine
Keeler in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical *Stephen Ward*, alongside Charlotte Blackledge as Mandy
Rice-Davies.[3][9][10]
The show run was cancelled shortly afterwards.[11]

### Television and film

Spencer appeared as Dexter Fletcher's daughter in *Hotel*
Babylon*.[6]*
She was the voice of Angelina Ballerina on Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps
when she was 17, and has since worked as a voice
actor, as Nettles in the 2018 TV series *Watership Down* and as a
continuity announcer for the Disney Channel.[11]
Spencer appeared in the films *Wild Bill* and *Les Misérables* in 2011[6][12]
and then *Dark Shadows* with Johnny
Depp in 2012.[6]

After her theatre appearance as Christine Keeler ended, Spencer had a small
part in *Line of Duty* and then was cast by the same director as jockey
Tina Fallon in the 2014 E4 TV series *Glue*.[13][11]
She was nominated for a Supporting Actress BAFTA for this role
in 2015.[3][14]
*Deadline Hollywood* reported that she would
star in *Broad Squad*;[15]
in 2015 she appeared in a pilot of *Broad Squad* as a 1970s police officer
on ABC,[3]
which was not made into a series.[6]
She starred as 'Niamh' in the BFI short, *Above*, which won Best Short
Film at the National Film Awards UK.[16]
She played the lead role, Lilly, in the film *Bypass* with George MacKay[7]
and appeared as Ellie in the BBC2 TV series *Stonemouth*.[17]
In 2015, she was nominated for best actress awards for *Stonemouth* at BAFTA
Scotland.[18]
In the BBC1 horror TV series *The Living and the Dead*,
broadcast in June 2016, she played the role of a photographer turned housewife,
Charlotte Appelby, with Colin Morgan.[19]
She said of the role "since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to do a
period drama".[20]
She appeared in another period drama in autumn 2019, as Esther Denham in *Sanditon*, a TV adaptation of the
unfinished Jane Austen novel.[11]
She defended the inclusion of sex and nudity as historically accurate and
"humanising".[21]

In May 2016, she filmed the BBC/NFTS short film *Diagnosis* in the lead role of Sally, a
woman who acts in medical role play.[22]
Spencer also play a hapless youth in the teen horror film Gateway, which
uses the Momo Challenge as a plot device.[23]