Ruth Madeley

Ruth Madeley is a British actress known for her roles in television productions such as Years and Years, The Rook, and Doctor Who. Born on August 4, 1987, she was raised in Westhoughton and diagnosed with spina bifida six weeks before her birth. Her father worked in customer services, her mother was a nurse, and she has an older sister. Madeley attended Mount St Joseph School in Farnworth, Thornleigh Salesian College, and Edge Hill University, where she earned a First Class Honours degree in English and creative writing with a focus on scriptwriting. Throughout her youth, she received support from the charity Whizz Kidz, volunteering for its youth panel and later working in its fundraising department. Her early community efforts earned her the Princess Diana Memorial Award and the first Bolton Wanderers' Community Hero award.

Madeley began her screen career in 2012 by writing and starring in the television film Lime Pictures Scrims, followed by supporting roles in series such as Fresh Meat and The Level. Her breakthrough came in 2015 when she starred as Anna in the TV movie Don't Take My Baby, a role that earned her a Best Actress television BAFTA nomination. Following this success, she was named one of BAFTA's 18 Breakthrough Brits in 2016. In 2019, she gained further prominence playing Rosie Lyons in Russell T. Davies' miniseries Years and Years, a role adapted to incorporate her spina bifida. That same year, she appeared as Ingrid Woodhouse in The Rook and signed an open letter calling on Hollywood to normalize disability representation.

Her stage debut occurred in 2018 in The Greatest Wealth at The Old Vic, performing the monologue "Choice & Control." From late 2019 to early 2020, she played Barbara 'Buck' Buckingham in Teenage Dick at the Donmar Warehouse. Madeley's subsequent television projects include Mat Fraser's CripTales, The Watch, The Cleaner, and the 2022 drama Then Barbara Met Alan, in which she starred as Barbara Lisicki. She also appeared in the feature film The Almond and The Seahorse and co-presented the 2022 Channel 4 documentary Disability and Abortion: The Hardest Choice alongside Ruben Reuter. Additionally, she competed on Celebrity Best Home Cook and appeared on Would I Lie to You?

Within the Doctor Who franchise, Madeley joined the Big Finish audio drama series in 2022 as the Sixth Doctor's companion, marine biologist Hebe Harrison. She later joined the screen cast of Doctor Who as Shirley Anne Bingham for the 2023 specials. Her later projects include starring in and executive producing a television adaptation of Liz Jensen's novel The Rapture for BBC One, with filming taking place in 2025.

In her personal life, Madeley has maintained a long-term connection with the charity Whizz Kidz, becoming a patron in 2019. She is a supporter of Bolton Wanderers F.C. She has been in a relationship with her partner, Joe Lawrence, since 2012, and the couple married in 2024.