Bridgerton season 3: Who is Nicola Coughlan, this season's star?

She describes herself as “a solid seven”, is relentlessly vocal about the Israel-Hamas war, has spoken widely about body pressures and her struggles with depression, and talks at a mile-a-minute.

This is Nicola Coughlan, the 37-year-old Irish actor who TV fans will know best as Bridgerton’s Penelope Featherington and as Derry Girls’s Clare Devlin.

Over the past seven years Coughlan’s life has turned upside-down. In 2017 she was working part-time at an opticians, living with her parents and wondering whether she should give up on acting.

Then along came Channel 4’s Derry Girls, a laugh-out-loud teen drama about a group of school girls in Northern Ireland in the Nineties. Coughlan was catapulted to national stardom in the show that became Channel 4’s biggest comedy since Father Ted.

And now she’s the lead in Netflix super-show Bridgerton. Her