Caroline Parker is an English actor, comedian and performer. She is deaf and a
British Sign Language
British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on ...
user.
Early life
Parker was born in
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
to a hearing family. As a child, she enjoyed dance classes. After attending mainstream schools with Partially Hearing Units, she took part of an experimental teaching programme at
Manchester University
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
, under which she received speech therapy.
She attended
Manchester Youth Theatre
The Manchester Youth Theatre was a youth theatre which operated in Manchester from 1966 until 2003. It was founded by Geoff Sykes, a lifelong friend of Michael Croft founder of The National Youth Theatre who served as its Artistic Director until hi ...
for three years and decided to pursue a career in theatre. She enrolled for a course on Foundation Drama and Theatre at a college in Salford. She was advised by her tutor to focus on mime. In 1982 Parker moved to London to train at Adam Darius' Mime Centre, followed by more training at Desmond Jones School of Mime.
Career
Parker landed her first acting job with Interim Theatre, quickly learning sign language to play Clarice in ''
The Servant of Two Masters
''The Servant of Two Masters'' ( it, Il servitore di due padroni, links=no) is a comedy by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni written in 1746. Goldoni originally wrote the play at the request of actor Antonio Sacco, one of the great Harlequins ...
'' which opened at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...
.
She has extensively worked in theatre, most recently with such companies as Graeae Theatre, Red Earth, Fittings Multi Media Arts, Fingersmiths and Deafinitely Theatre.
Parker was commissioned a one-woman show, ''Signs of a Star Shaped Diva'', by Theatre Royal Stratford East and The New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich. The show featured her signature sign songs and toured theatres around the UK. Parker has also performed her cabaret act, ''The Silent Diva'', bringing her sign songs at such festivals as Glastonbury, WOMAD and Liberty Festivals. She appears as a stand-up comedian under the name of Caro Sparks. As well as acting and performing, she delivers drama or sign songs workshop and has experience in direction.
Parker has also made appearances on TV programmes such as
''My Hero'',
''Murphy's Law'' and as Sue in the BBC drama series ''
Switch
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...
'', as well as in Louis Neethling's film ''Fairy Tale of London Town'' playing the role of Veronica. For her role in for
Jean St Clair's film 'If I Don't Lose...', Parker won the Best Actress Award at the Clin d'Oeil Festival 2015.
Parker was invited to perform at the opening ceremony of the
2012 Paralympic Games
The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Gam ...
, signing
''I am what I am'' along with singer
Beverly Knight
Beverley Knight (born Beverley Anne Smith, 22 March 1973) is an English recording artist and musical theatre actress. She released her first album, ''The B-Funk'', in 1995. Heavily influenced by American soul music icons such as Sam Cooke and ...
.
She received an
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
in the
2012 New Year Honours
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...
for her service to deaf theatre. In April 2021, she appeared in an episode of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.