Alison Newman

Alison Newman (born 25 January 1968) is an English actress best known for her role in the hit ITV1 television series Footballers' Wives as Hazel Bailey, and as DCI Samantha Keeble in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

Biography Alison Newman was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire , to David and Jenny Newman. She has one sister called Sarah. Both her parents were schoolteachers who encouraged her to take up acting as a hobby but discouraged her from attending stage school when she was younger, a decision she subsequently agreed was probably sensible. Instead, she joined the National Youth Theatre when she was sixteen. Her father died in October 2002, while she was filming the second series of Footballers' Wives. The producers allowed her to take time off from filming some of her last scenes in the series finale so she could be with her family.

Despite studying drama at the University of Manchester Alison Newman did not work as an actress for almost ten years after graduating. She says that she hated the experience of being at drama school and lost her confidence. Both programmes were made by Shed Productions. The part of Hazel Bailey required Newman to have her naturally blonde hair dyed red. Newman left the show at the end of series 4, when her character decided to return to sports representation, after becoming romantically involved with a professional tennis player.

Other work After Footballers Wives, Newman played Diane Scott in Rocket Man for BBC One in the autumn of 2005. In 2008, she appeared as Lynette Hopkins in Rock Rivals, another Shed Productions drama for ITV1, and later that year she appeared as Detective Inspector Samantha Keeble in several episodes of the BBC soap EastEnders. She played the part of a back-street abortionist in an episode of the popular BBC One drama Call the Midwife, as well as appearing in the short film Father in 2013. In July 2014 Newman resumed the role of DI Samantha Keeble in EastEnders when her character was put in charge of the Lucy Beale murder case. She departed the role again in June 2016. She returned to the series once again in January 2022 and departed again in January 2023.

Newman has extensive theatre experience, including Loveplay by Moira Buffini; Luminosity by Nick Stafford; Night of the Soul by David Farr and The Big Lie by Anthony Neilson, all for the RSC, as well as The Censor and The Lying Kind, both by Anthony Neilson, for the Royal Court Theatre, London. Between 2003 and 2006, she appeared in Vagina Monologues, both on tour and in the West End. Her most recent theatre work was in Two Women, by Martina Cole, and performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East between February and March 2010.

She co-created the TV series Harlots with Moira Buffini.

Personal life