Zoe Wanamaker

Zoe Wanamaker played the eccentric and colourful Ariadne Oliver, a crime writer who gets involved with some of Poirot’s cases, in series 10-13 of Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

Of American/Canadian descent, and Ukrainian through her father, Wanamaker trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and started her career in the theatre. Between 1976 and 1984 she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, winning an Olivier Award for her 1979 performance in Once In a Lifetime and a second for Sophocles' Electra in 1998.
In 1997, she was the first person to speak on the stage of the new replica Globe Theatre in London and subsequently became Honorary President of the Globe.

Wanamaker has starred in many popular film and television productions, including as Susan Harper in My Family alongside Robert Lindsay and as Quidditch teacher Madame Hooch in the Harry Potter films.