British star and Oscars 2021 Supporting Actress nominee Olivia Colman

Sarah Caroline Olivia Colman (born 30 January 1974) is an English TV and film actress. She is the recipient of an Academy Award (Oscar), four BAFTA Awards, four British Independent Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Coppa Volpi and has been nominated twice for an Emmy Award. She spent her formative years at our school, joining us in 1982.

A graduate of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Colman came to prominence for her work.

in television originally. She has recently picked up a supporting actress nomination for The Father, where she stars alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was nominated for best actor. The movie is about a man slipping into dementia.

Her diverse TV and film appearances include:

• Peep Show (2003–2015)
• Green Wing (2004–2006)
• Hot Fuzz (2007)
• Beautiful People (2008–2009)
• Rev. (2010–2014)
• Broadchurch (2014)
• The Night Manager (2016)
• Carol Thatcher in ‘The Iron Lady’ (2011)
• Queen Elizabeth in ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ (2012)
• The Thirteenth Tale (2013)
• Yorgos Lanthimos’s ‘The Lobster’ (2015).
• Anne, Queen of Great Britain in ‘The Favourite’ (2018)

Author – Raffaella Barker 

Raffaella Barker was born in London in 1964 and moved to Norfolk when she was three. Her father, the poet George Barker, had 15 children; she is the oldest of those by the novelist Elspeth Barker.

She spent her childhood in Norfolk and after Norwich High School, Raffaella moved to London and did life modelling and film-editing. She landed a job on Harpers & Queen magazine and later freelanced as its motoring columnist. For 10 years she wrote a column for Country Life about her week.

Her debut novel Come and Tell Me Some Lies was published in 1994, followed by The Hook, Hens Dancing, Summertime, Green Grass, the children’s book Phosphorescence and A Perfect Life

Writer and Illustrator Jane Hissey

Jane Hissey (born 1952) is a British author and illustrator of children’s books. She is best known for her series of children’s books Old Bear and Friends, which became the basis for a BAFTA award-winning television series Old Bear Stories, episodes of which were released on VHS by Carlton Video.

Hissey was born in Norwich and attended Norwich High School for Girls. She studied Design and Illustration at Brighton and taught Art at a sixth form college until the birth of her first child.

Hissey has written that “Old Bear” was given to her as a baby by her grandmother. During her childhood he was a main focus of her games, and when she was an adult he provided the inspiration for her first illustrated book. He was later joined by other soft toy characters. In 1986 her Old Bear was published, and made it into Booklist’s “Editor’s Choice” list for children’s books for that year.

English concert and opera soprano Dr Jane Manning OBE

Jane Manning OBE (born 20 September 1938) is an English concert and opera soprano, writer on music, and Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music.

She was born in Norwich and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and in Switzerland. She has more than 45 years’ international experience in an exceptionally wide-ranging repertoire, and is especially celebrated world-wide as an indefatigable interpreter of new music. She has given more than 350 world premieres to date, and has worked closely with composers such as Bennett, Birtwistle, Cage, Lutyens, Knussen, and Weir. 

She received the OBE in 1990, a Special Award from the Composers Guild of Gt. Britain in 1973, and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of York  (1988) Keele ( 2004). Durham (2007) and Kingston ( 2011) She is a Fellow of both the Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music. She also acts on the Executive Committee of the Musicians Benevolent Fund, and is Chairman of the Eye Music Trust. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music, spent 6 years as Honorary Professor at Keele University, and was Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow, and, later, Visiting Professor at Kingston University.

English soprano Elizabeth Watts

Elizabeth Watts was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and studied archaeology at Sheffield University before studying singing at the Royal College of Music in London. She was awarded an Hon DMus by Sheffield in 2013 and became a Fellow of the RCM in 2017.

She is a prolific recording artist, and her recordings include critically acclaimed discs of:

• Lieder by Schubert and Strauss
• Mozart arias with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
• CPE Bach Magnificat with the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, which won the Gramophone Award for the Best Baroque Vocal Recording

She made several concert appearances over her prolific career, including the 2018 BBC Proms, singing Schubert songs with the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgards.

A few of many her many opera roles have included:

• Zerlina Don Giovanni and Marzelline Fidelio for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden
• Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Santa Fe Opera and WNO
• the Countess in both Mozart’s opera and a sequel Figaro Gets A Divorce by Elena Langer
• Almirena in Handel Rinaldo for Glyndebourne on Tour