Carmen Esme Munroe, OBE (born 12 November 1932)[1] is a British actress who was born in Berbice, British Guiana (now Guyana), and has been a resident of the UK since the early 1950s. Munroe made her West End stage debut in 1962 and has played an instrumental role in the development of black British theatre and representation on small screen. She has had high-profile roles on stage and television, perhaps best known from the British TV sitcom Desmond's as Shirley, wife of the eponymous barber played by Norman Beaton.
Early life
Carmen Esme Steele was born in New Amsterdam, Berbice, British Guiana, one of nine children.[2] Her eldest sister Daphne Steele became the first BlackMatron in the National Health Service in Britain.[3] Her mother Maude was a piano teacher and her father worked as a pharmacist who travelled around the colony to work.[4] Steele was educated at Enterprise High School.[5] She emigrated to Britain in 1951, with her mother and sister Jeune, following her sister Daphne. After studying ophthalmic optics for a year then working as a librarian in Tooting, south London, in 1957 she began studying drama with a group based at the West Indian Students' Centre in Collingham Gardens, south-west London.[5]
Her work for television has encompassed being for a time a presenter of Play School as well as the BBC's lunchtime children's programme How Do You Do, and a wide variety of acting appearances. These include Fariah Neguib in the 1967 Doctor Who story The Enemy of the World; Sister Frances Washington in General Hospital, in The Persuaders (1971), Barry Reckord's In the Beautiful Caribbean (BBC 1972), Alfred Fagon's Shakespeare Country (BBC 1973), The Fosters (LWT, 1976–77), Michael Abbensetts' Black Christmas (BBC, 1977), Mixed Blessings (1978–80), Horace Ové's A Hole in Babylon (BBC, 1979), and Caryl Phillips' The Hope and the Glory (BBC, 1984). Munroe became best known, however, for her regular appearances between 1989 and 1994 in the Channel 4 sitcom Desmond's (written by Trix Worrell) as Shirley, wife of the eponymous barber Desmond Ambrose, played by Norman Beaton.[8]
She is one of the founders of Talawa, the UK's leading black theatre company, which she established in 1985 together with Mona Hammond, Inigo Espegel and Yvonne Brewster.[9]
In 1992, Munroe "gave an outstanding performance as Essie Robeson in a BBC play called A Song at Twilight".[10]
Stephen Bourne, "Carmen Munroe: Standing in the Light" (interview with Brenda Emmanus), in Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television, Continuum, 2001, pp. 132–141.
Jim Pines (ed.), Black and White in Colour - Black People in British Television Since 1936, London: British Film Institute, 1992.