You’ve definitely seen her face. Whether she was throwing a literal punch in a Victorian alleyway or making you deeply uncomfortable with a deadpan joke about religion, Susan Wokoma has likely been on your screen. It’s funny how some actors just "arrive," but Wokoma didn't just show up. She’s been grinding through the UK comedy and drama circuit for over a decade, building a resume that makes most actors look like they’re on a permanent vacation.
Honestly, it’s her range that’s the most jarring. One minute she’s playing Cynthia, the sexually repressed sister in Chewing Gum, and the next, she’s a jiu-jitsu-master suffragette in Enola Holmes. She has this uncanny ability to be the funniest person in the room while simultaneously making you feel a bit of a lump in your throat.
The Breakthrough: From Chewing Gum to Global Recognition
Most people first got a real taste of what she can do in Chewing Gum. If you haven't seen it, stop reading and go find it. She played Cynthia, the sister to Michaela Coel’s Tracey. Cynthia was… a lot. She was intensely devout, wildly sheltered, and somehow managed to make a scene about breaking her own hymen with olive oil both hilarious and oddly tragic.
That role wasn't just a fluke. Wokoma has talked about how she and Coel worked together at the National Theatre before the show even existed. Coel literally wrote the character of the sister because she wanted Wokoma in the cast. That says a lot. When a creator like Coel—who is notoriously specific—builds a role specifically for you, it’s because you have something nobody else has.
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But susan wokoma movies and tv shows aren't just limited to the "weird sister" trope. She pivoted fast. After Chewing Gum, she jumped into Crazyhead, playing Raquel. It was basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer if Buffy lived in the English Midlands and was constantly annoyed by everything. It won her an RTS Best On-Screen Performance award, and for good reason. She made demon-hunting look like a boring chore she was just trying to get through so she could go home and have a snack.
Breaking the Period Drama Mold
If you're into Victorian mysteries, you've seen her in the Enola Holmes franchise. She plays Edith. Now, usually, Black women in period dramas are relegated to the background or "suffering servant" roles. Not Edith. Edith runs a tea shop that’s actually a front for a secret martial arts school. She teaches the suffragettes how to fight back.
There’s a scene in the first Enola Holmes where she tells Sherlock (played by Henry Cavill) that he doesn't care about politics because the world already suits him perfectly. It went viral for a reason. It was sharp, it was true, and Wokoma delivered it with a level of authority that made Sherlock Holmes look like a confused toddler.
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Why Mabel Wisbech is Her Most Underrated Role
You can't talk about her career without mentioning Year of the Rabbit. It’s a spoof of 70s cop shows but set in the 1880s. She plays Mabel Wisbech, the country’s first female police officer. She’s foul-mouthed, intuitive, and has zero time for the "etiquette" of the era. It’s a crime that this show hasn’t had five seasons yet. Watching her trade insults with Matt Berry is a masterclass in comic timing.
A Recent Shift: Writing and Directing
While she’s famous for being in front of the camera, Wokoma is increasingly moving behind it. She was in the writers' room for the second season of Sex Education, which makes total sense if you’ve seen her work—her humor fits that show’s "honest-but-filthy" vibe perfectly.
More recently, she’s been pushing into filmmaking. Her directorial debut, Dark Skin Bruises Differently, premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in 2025. It’s a pivot from the high-energy comedy she’s known for, showing a much more nuanced, dramatic side. She’s also working on a feature film called Three Weeks with BBC Films. It’s a "rom-com drama" about a woman who finds out she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend right after they break up.
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Major Credits You Might Have Missed
It's easy to lose track of how much she's actually done. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the standout susan wokoma movies and tv shows that often fly under the radar:
- Cheaters (2022-2024): She plays Fola in this series about two people who have an affair and then realize they live across the street from each other. It’s awkward. Very, very awkward.
- Truth Seekers (2020): She joined Nick Frost and Simon Pegg for this paranormal comedy. She played Helen, a woman with severe agoraphobia who is also a genius at makeup effects.
- The Beautiful Game (2024): A shift into sports drama, where she played Protasia. It's a heartwarming film about the Homeless World Cup, and it showed she could do "sincere" just as well as she does "sarcastic."
- Inside No. 9: She appeared in the final season of this legendary anthology show. If you know Inside No. 9, you know that getting cast in it is basically a badge of honor in the British acting world.
Why She’s a "Breakthrough Brit" for a Reason
Back in 2017, BAFTA named her a "Breakthrough Brit." Usually, these titles are a bit of a curse—you get the label and then disappear. Wokoma did the opposite. She used it as a launchpad. She’s one of the few actors who can jump between a massive Netflix blockbuster and a tiny, experimental short film without losing her identity.
The industry is finally catching up to her. For a long time, the roles for Black women in the UK were pretty narrow. Wokoma has been vocal about this, once saying in an interview that "the door shuts firmly on us a lot quicker." By writing her own material and taking on roles like Edith or Mabel, she’s basically kicking that door off the hinges.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Creators
If you’re looking to dive deeper into Susan Wokoma's work or are an aspiring creator inspired by her path, here’s how to approach it:
- Watch "Chewing Gum" and "Crazyhead" Back-to-Back: It’s the best way to see her range. The jump from the repressed Cynthia to the badass Raquel is startling.
- Follow her Writing Credits: Keep an eye on Three Weeks. If her previous writing work on Sex Education is any indicator, it’s going to be a sharp, unsentimental look at modern relationships.
- Support the Shorts: Many of her best performances are in short films like Love the Sinner. These are often where she experiments the most before bringing that energy to big-budget projects.
Whether she's judging on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (she was a guest judge in 2025) or leading a BBC drama, Susan Wokoma is currently in her "imperial phase." She’s no longer just a scene-stealer; she’s the one building the scenes.