With a career spanning four decades, everyone’s guaranteed to have found themselves enthralled by one of Sarah Lancashire’s powerhouse performances at some point in their lives. Because, from dark police procedurals to impossibly effervescent musicals, cosy period dramas to engrossing biopics, she is a woman that can and has done it all.

Here’s our pick of the genre-hopping legend’s best film and TV roles so far, all of which are available to stream now should you so wish.

Happy Valley

The iconic Sergeant Catherine Cawood needs no introduction, to be perfectly frank. Resilient, determined, and generally, this grandma and bereaved mother is just doing her day job in West Yorkshire: keeping the bad guys off the street. And she does it so bloody well, doesn’t she?

Happy Valley is streaming on BBC iPlayer.

Doctor Who

Every great British actor has starred in Doctor Who at some point in their careers, and Lancashire is no exception. Back in 2008, she took on the role of the villainous Miss Foster, whose dangerous extraterrestrial diet pills (and hoards of adipose alien babies) unwittingly helped to reunite Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble with David Tennant’s Doctor.

Doctor Who: Season 4, Episode 1 is streaming on BBC iPlayer.

Julia

Inspired by Julia Child’s extraordinary life, this brilliant eight-episode dramedy is largely focused on her long-running television series, The French Chef, which pioneered the popular cooking-show genre. And, while there are plenty of big belly laughs to be had, it’s important to remember that at the heart of this biopic lies a portrait of a loving marriage with an evolving and complicated power dynamic.

Speaking about her approach to the show’s eponymous heroine, Lancashire said: “Occasionally, I would be asked to take [the comedy] a little bit higher and I would always resist. I would always say, ‘No, absolutely not’. I think she’s a woman who could be very easily lampooned because of her exuberance, but you don’t need to do that. It wasn’t necessary to do that.

“And I think there’s an awful lot… where we see the Julia who is away from the cameras, the Julia who is not switched on, and that is equally as important. And hopefully, there is a fine balance between the two.”

Julia is streaming on NOW.

Lark Rise To Candleford

An adaptation of Flora Thompson’s memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood, this cosy period drama is set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and follows a young girl’s apprenticeship to a postmistress.

Much like Call The Midwife, the series is narrated by an older unseen version of the main character – and, in this instance, it’s Lancashire, whose soothing and inimitable tones pretty much make this show what it is.

Lark Rise To Candleford is streaming on ITVX.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Much like the original stage production, the movie follows Jamie New (played by newcomer Max Harwood), a teenager who harbours dreams of being a professional drag queen.

His journey isn’t an easy one. School bullies label him a “freak”, his careers teacher Miss Hedge (Sharon Horgan) is thoroughly unconvinced by his ambitions, and his dad Wayne (Ralph Ineson) is utterly disappointed by his son’s aspirations.

“What is wrong with our boy?” he asks at one point.

Thankfully for Jamie, his mum forever has his back. And Lancashire brings all of her warmth and emotion to the role of Margaret – and even showcases her impressive vocals on the moving track, He’s My Boy, too.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is streaming on Prime Video.

Last Tango In Halifax

When two former childhood sweethearts find one another again in their seventies, it throws the lives of their respective families into disarray – perhaps none more so than Oxford-educated headmistress Caroline (Lancashire).

It’s a romantic drama that’s as dark as it is comic, and Lancashire has said that she will forever be proud of her character’s “extraordinary impact.” 

“I still get letters now from people in this country and abroad who are women who have come out later on in life, and they have been unable to live their lives, possibly until they have reached 60,” she said at the Hay Festival in 2015, noting that all were inspired by the fact that her character, Caroline, was shown to be in a same-sex relationship).

“Their feedback has been that the sensitivity has been beautiful, they haven’t seen that nature of the relationship portrayed or written in such a sensitive manner before.”

Last Tango In Halifax is streaming on BBC iPlayer now.

Still not enough Sarah Lancashire for you?

You can also find Lancashire acting her chops off in the following titles:

• Where The Heart Is 
• Coronation Street
• Clocking Off 
• Seeing Red 
• Oliver Twist 
• The Paradise
• And When Did You Last See Your Father? 
• Dad’s Army 
• Kiri 
• MotherFatherSon 
• Inspector George Gently
• Wuthering Heights (2009)
• Upstairs Downstairs 
  
• The Dresser 
• School of Roars 
• Skins
• Yesterday 
• The Bill
• The Cry 
• The Accident 

Images: Getty/Sky/BBC