
Age: 39
female
Laura Carmichael is a British actress. Her TV appearances include her performance as Lady Edith Crawley in the ITV (UK) and PBS (US) television period drama series Downton Abbey, Marcella (2016), and the feature film A United Kingdom (2016). She is also a member of The Fitzrovia Radio Hour. Carmichael was born in Southampton, England. She is the middle of three daughters. Her sister Amy works for a software start-up company and her other sister Olivia is a charity fundraiser with the NHS. She was educated at Shirley Junior School, The Mountbatten School, and Peter Symonds College. Carmichael attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, graduating in 2007, before spending two years in various odd jobs, including a teaching assistant, receptionist, and nanny while going to tiny auditions in fringe theatres

When Noel Bostock—aged ten, no family—is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge—a thirty-six-year old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she’s unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel’s mourning his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years, raised with a disdain for authority and an eclectic attitude toward education, he has little in common with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next. The war’s provided unprecedented opportunities for making money, but what Vee needs—and what she’s never had—is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she’s a disaster. With Noel, she’s a team. Together, they cook up a scheme. Crisscrossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war—and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all. . . .


