The actor Ruth Madeley was born in Westhoughton, near Bolton, in 1987. She studied creative writing and English at Edge Hill University in Lancashire and got her acting breakthrough in the 2015 TV drama Don’t Take My Baby, playing a disabled parent fighting to keep her newborn child (Madeley was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair). She was nominated for a best actress Bafta for the role. Since then she’s starred in Russell T Davies’s Years and Years in 2019, and 2022’s Then Barbara Met Alan, as disability rights campaigner Barbara Lisicki. Madeley will play Shirley Ann Bingham in the first Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, premiering on BBC One and Disney+ on 25 November.
