Love Celia

Actress Celia Imrie has travelled the world for work and leisure but wherever she goes there is a part of her which is forever Surrey

-  Bernard Bale

One of our best-loved comedy actresses, Celia Imrie is famed for playing Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques and her brilliant cameos in films such as Calendar Girls, Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

More recently as the mother of Sam Fox in Pam Adlon’s Better Things, Celia has spent a lot of time across the pond. In the critically acclaimed US-based show, which recently returned to BBC Two for a fourth series, Celia plays Phyllis – a frank character she describes as a “well-preserved bombshell.”

Closer to home Celia also starred in one of this year’s feelgood British films, Love Sarah, about a young woman striving to fulfill her mother’s dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, enlisting the help of her best friend and grandmother, played by Celia.

But, whether she is working at home or away, the Guildford-born Olivier award-winning actress says a part of her will forever belong to Surrey.

“I love being on water, so being born and raised in Surrey was just perfect for me,” she said. “Wherever you go in the county you are never far from lakes and rivers and especially the wonderfully iconic Thames. If you like water there are few better places, if any, than Surrey.”