BROADCHURCH well and truly made Olivia Colman a household name.

But the truth is that this BAFTA-winning actress has starred in many of Britain’s best-loved TV shows (who could forget her as Sophie in Peep Show?) over the last decade. She’s now a national treasure, with critics calling her ‘the new Helen Mirren’ and ‘Britain’s most versatile actress’.

Considering the diversity of roles in our Olivia Colman Top Five, we have to whole-heartedly agree.

5. Brutal, frank and rewarding – these were words used by critics to describe 2011’s Tyrannosaur.

Colman played Hannah, an abused wife, who offers a chance of redemption for a down-and-out man she meets.

4. Twenty Twelve. Colman played Sally Owen, PA to Ian Fletcher in this BBC comedy who was ‘desperately in love’ with him.

She spoke of the hard work of filming the second series, saying: “I will only have filmed for a day and a half on the second series – but they cram a lot in.”

3. Colman had viewers gripped when she donned a blonde wig and starred alongside Hollywood icon Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol in 2011’s The Iron Lady.

2. She was the woman we loved to hate- Sophie Chapman in Peep Show. Fans were shouting ‘don’t do it!’ in the episode where she and bumbling Mark walked down the aisle.

It didn’t help that Sophie was weeping sadly, of course. Anyway, things just get messier and messier and at the end of Series Five Sophie is pregnant.

The father is either Mark, his best mate Jeremy, or another man named Jeff. If you want to know whose it is, you’ll have to watch Peep Show.

1. Again, it has to be the one and only Broadchurch – the show that propelled Colman to her well-deserved BAFTA award.

We can’t wait to see DI Miller on our screens again.

SARAH Caroline Olivia Colman was born on January 30, 1974 in Norwich, Norfolk.

She spent a semester at Cambridge studying to be a teacher, and ‘accidentally’ auditioned for Footlights – a theatrical club that has become a pillar of the British comedy community.

It was here she met David Mitchell and Robert Webb (hapless duo Mark and Jeremy in Peep Show).

Colman then went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but it was comedy that really made her a familiar face and in 2000 she landed a role in the BBC sketch comedy show Bruiser.

From here she went on to appear in reportedly 30 shows from 2000-2010.

This included The Mitchell and Webb Situation and Green Wing.

In real life she’s married to writer Ed Sinclair and the couple have two children.

Colman said it was ‘love at first sight’ when she first laid eyes on her husband.

“He was gorgeous, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” she says. But apparently the feeling wasn’t instantly mutual. “I stuck with him and made him realise he could only be happy with me.

“I still feel like I’m punching above my weight.”