Creator / Tessa Peake-Jones

Who's Rachel?

"I like any role that's a challenge. I could do with a bit more of the glamour, but equally, I'm not a vain actress, so I don't care about not wearing make-up if it's right for the part. In some ways, it's more challenging to do those roles where you have to be braver and say, 'You know what, I won't have help of a bit of lipstick, I'm just going to go for this'."

Tessa Peake-Jones, (9 May 1957), is a British actress best known for playing Raquel Turner in Only Fools and Horses.

In 1973, she left Downer Grammar School to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama and by 1978 was appearing on TV in small roles. Large early roles came in two 1979 series: Telford's Change where she played Elizabeth Cowley and The Danedyke Mystery where she played Angela Horton. Barring the role of Jenny in Charters & Caldicott, the rest of The '80s had nothing but small roles for Peake-Jones.

In 1988, she played Raquel, a love interest for Del Boy in the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Episode "Dates". Raquel was intended to be a One-Shot Character, but both the writer John Sullivan and the audience loved her chemistry with David Jason so Raquel returned to the series in "The Jolly Boys' Outing" and became an Only Fools mainstay for the rest of the series.

During Only Fools, Peake-Jones starred in So Haunt Me as Sally Rokeby and after Only Fools, she starred in Deaths, Marriages and Births as Molly. Once the 2000s hit, she had roles in Doctors, Holby City, and most notably in Grantchester, playing the cantankerous and religious housekeeper, Mrs. Sylvia Maguire, later Mrs. Sylvia Chapman.

---

Works on TV Tropes she appeared in:

Films

• The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2010) — Mrs. Rawson

Series

• Bergerac, episode "Come Out Fighting" (1983) — Reporter
• Screen Two, episode "Quartermaine's Terms" (1987) — Anita Manchip
• Only Fools and Horses, 19 episodes:
  • 19 episodes (1988-2003) — Raquel Turner
  • "Time on Our Hands" (1996) — Joan Trotter
• The Bill, 3 episodes:
  • 2 episodes^{show list}"Digging Up the Past", "A Fair Appraisal" (1988-89) — Scenes of Crime Officer
  • "Happy and Glorious" (2001) — Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Munson
• CASUAL+Y, 3 episodes:
  • "Big Boys Don't Cry" (1990) — Esther Macauley
  • "Trials and Tribulations" (1995) — Jenny Hodges
  • "A Better Past" (2010) — Tina Flannery
• So Haunt Me, 19 episodes (1992-94) — Sally Rokeby
• The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, 2 episodes (1997) — Bridget Allworthy
• Midsomer Murders, 2 episodes:
  • "Faithful unto Death" (1998) — Sarah Lawton
  • "Breaking the Chain" (2016) — Mary Appleton
• Holby City, 9 episodes:
  • 2 episodes^{show list}"Runaway", "Winner Takes All" (2001) — Maggie Latham
  • 7 episodes^{show list}"Hail Caesar", "After the Party", "How Lo Can You Go?", "Fault Lines", "Through the Darkness", "And We Banish Shade", "Black Dog" (2012-16) — Imelda Cousins
• Waking the Dead, 2 episodes^{show list}"Every Breath You Take: Part 1", "Every Breath You Take: Part 2" (2001) — Fiona Maitland
• The Lost World, episode "Part 2" (2001) — Mrs. Summerlee
• Dalziel and Pascoe, 2 episodes^{show list}"Dust Thou Art: Part 1", "Dust Thou Art: Part 2" (2005) — Emma Collins
• Heartbeat, episode "Hey Hey LBJ" (2008) — Jocelyn Middleton
• Poirot, episode "The Clocks" (2009) — Val Bland
• Doctors, 12 episodes (2009-11) — Sue Bond
• Doctor Who, episode "The Time of the Doctor" (2013) — Marta
• Grantchester, 51 episodes (2014-23) — Mrs. Sylvia Chapman
• Unforgotten, 4 episodes (2015) — Sheila
• Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators, episode "No More Cakes and Ale" (2019) — Cynthia Sly

---