Jenny Funnell

Jenny Victoria Funnell is a British actress born on 20 May 1963 in Kenya, who relocated to the United Kingdom at the age of four. She trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she began working in radio drama before completing her studies. In 1984, while still a student, she won the Carleton Hobbs BBC Radio Drama Award.

Funnell's earliest screen appearances came in the mid-1980s, with a role in the British soap opera Brookside in 1985, followed by the BBC police series Bergerac in 1988. In 1990 she appeared in the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "Peril at End House," part of the ITV series' second season. Her television work expanded into comedy with a part in the ITV drama-comedy Boon in 1989 and a role in the television film Norbert Smith: A Life. Later comedy credits included a guest appearance in the Channel 4 newsroom sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey in 1994 and the romantic comedy Love Soup in 2005.

Her most sustained television role came in the BBC sitcom As Time Goes By, in which she played Sandy across 58 episodes between 1992 and 2005. The show ran for nine series on BBC One and co-starred Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. Additional television appearances during this period included the ITV hospital drama The Royal in 2003, two separate roles in the BBC medical drama Doctors in 2002 and 2004, and a part in the ITV police series The Bill in 2006.

Funnell was a member of the original West End cast of Michael Grandage's production of Hamlet, which starred Jude Law in the title role. The production opened at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, subsequently performed at Kronborg Castle in Denmark, and transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway in August 2009. Her stage work has also included Sense and Sensibility at the Watermill Theatre in Bagnor, West Berkshire in April 2014, What the Butler Saw at The Haymarket Theatre in Basingstoke in September 2015, and a UK touring production of A Murder Is Announced throughout 2019.

Since 2009, Funnell has provided voices for nine characters across the FromSoftware video game series Dark Souls and Bloodborne. She also holds a City of London Green Badge Tour Guide qualification and leads general and specialist tours of the City of London. Funnell has a daughter who is also an actress.