Richenda Carey (born 29 April 1948) is a British film, television, stage, and radio actress whose career has spanned more than five decades. Her screen work includes The Darling Buds of May, Monarch of the Glen, Criminal Justice, Colonia and Downton Abbey.
Carey's early television work includes Mike Leigh's "Nuts in May" (1976), made for the BBC's Play for Today strand, playing Miss Beale. She later appeared in another Mike Leigh production for Play for Today, Who's Who (1979), playing Lady Crouchurst.
Carey has performed extensively on the British and international stage. Her theatre career has included work at the National Theatre, where she appeared in the original 1991 production of The Madness of George III. She later joined the West End company of Calendar Girls at the Noël Coward Theatre in 2009, and in 2012 played Mrs Higgins in a Sheffield Crucible revival of My Fair Lady. Her stage work has also taken her to New York, where she appeared as Lady Knightsbridge in J. B. Priestley's The Roundabout at 59E59 Theaters as part of the 2017 Brits Off Broadway festival. More recent roles have included appearances in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Summer 1954. In 2026, she played Lady Saltburn in a new production of Noël Coward's Present Laughter, which opened at the Theatre Royal Bath before embarking on a national tour.
