Running from 2004 to 2013 the dark comedy is one of the biggest UK programmes of all time
15:59, 02 Aug 2026Updated 18:49, 02 Aug 2026
Cast of the original hit show Shameless
For many fans of UK TV, it doesn’t get much better than Shameless, but here are the cast of the iconic Channel 4 comedy today?
Premiering in 2004, the drama quickly established itself as a standout series of the noughties, launching several acting careers in the process. It was set in the fictitious Chatsworth estate in Manchester.
Created by Paul Abbott, Shameless provided a raw, humorous, and often shocking depiction of working-class life in the UK. It was such a hit that it inspired a US reboot which is one of the most streamed programmes around the world.
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13 years on from its final episode, we’ve decided to look at what the stars behind the biggest characters have been up to since The Jockey served its last pint. To say they’ve done well is an understatement.
David Threlfall – Frank Gallagher
David Threlfall filming Shameless in Wythenshawe, April 2007(Image: Daily Mirror)
Burnage native David Threlfall appeared in every single season of Shameless as Frank Gallagher, also directing several episodes. Known for being drunk most of the time, Frank essentially left his children to raise themselves while he was off on his various misadventures.
Prior to Shameless, David won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1980 for his work in Nicholas Nickleby. Just before landing the role of Frank, David played the role of Friedrich Kritzinger in the BBC/HBO drama Conspiracy.
Boasting a wide range when it comes to his acting skills, he’s appeared in hit films such as Patriot Games, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Nowhere Boy.
Once Shameless came to an end, he played comedy icon Tommy Cooper in ITV’s Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, Noah in the BBC TV film The Ark, DCS David Baker in the police drama Code of a Killer, Priam in Troy: Fall of a City and a grandad in Isolation Stories, a mini-series about people living through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recent years have also seen David appear in Dodger, Passenger, Funny Woman, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin and Nightsleeper. Last year, David shined as Brian Mitchell in Unforgivable, a BBC film about the devastating aftermath of an act of sexual abuse, and act alongside Matt Smith in Sky’s The Death of Bunny Munro.
Away from the screen, David has been married to Bosnian actress Brana Bajic since 1995.They met in 1994, whilst working on The Count of Monte Cristo at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and have two children together.
Anne-Marie Duff – Fiona Gallagher
Anne-Marie Duff as Fiona(Image: Unknown)
In spite of Fiona Gallagher essentially being the heart of the show, Anne-Marie Duff left Shameless after its second season and didn’t return until its final season. Her exit storyline saw Fiona leave to start a new life with Steve McBride (James McAvoy).
Rising to fame in 2002 for her work playing Margaret in The Magdalene Sisters, Anne-Marie also had a minor role in Holby City as Alison McCarthy. In 2005, she played Queen Elizabeth I in the 2005 BBC miniseries The Virgin Queen, which landed her a BAFTA nomination and also starred Tom Hardy.
Anne-Marie starred in a number of hit films including Notes on a Scandal, Garage, Is Anybody There?, The Last Station, Nowhere Boy, Before I Go to Sleep and Suffragette.
In spite of her busy movie schedule, Anne-Marie did star in the BBC series Parade’s End, From Darkness, Murder, Watership Down and His Dark Materials for the BBC in the 2010s. The latter two projects saw her acting alongside James McAvoy once again.
Anne-Marie and James tied the knot in 2006, with them welcoming a son into the world in 2020. Sadly, they announced their divorce in 2016 but remain good friends. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2025 New Year Honours for services to drama.
2020 saw Anne-Matie join the cast of the hit Netflix series Sex Education, where she played Emma Mackey’s mum, who struggled with a heroin addiction. She won the Best Supporting Actress BAFTA in 2023 for her performance as Grace Williams in Apple TV’s Bad Sisters.
Jody Latham – Lip Gallagher
Lip (Jody Latham )(Image: Channel 4)
Similarly to Anne-Marie, Jody Latham left Shameless early on in its run, with the character leaving in the fifth season and not returning until the final season.
Jody’s biggest role outside of Shameless was Calum McKenzie in ITV’s The Fixer. Running for two seasons, he played the cheeky Callum in the Andrew Buchan show about an ex-British Special Forces soldier who is arrested by police for killing his aunt and uncle following his discovery of their abuse of his sister and becomes a government-backed assassin.
The Burnley actor also had brief appearances in The Tudors, EastEnders, Waterloo Road, Hollyoaks and Holby City. His final acting appearance came in the 2017 Channel 4 crime drama No Offence. These days Jody works in a family construction business, having previously set up a company which sold botox and dermal fillers.
Gerard Kearns – Ian Gallagher
Gerard Kearns as Lip Gallagher(Image: Channel 4)
Ian Gallagher is best known for his affair with his employer Kash Karib (Chris Bisson), a married corner shop owner. Later finding out that he was not Frank’s son, Ian left in season seven after unwittingly causing Joe Pritchard’s (Ben Batt) death.
During his time on Shameless, Gerard also found time to appear in Doctors, Foyle’s War, The Commander and Red Riding. He has continued to shine in his acting career with roles in critically acclaimed films like The Mark of Cain and Trespass Against Us, which also stars Michael Fassbender.
When it comes to the small screen, he landed big roles as Halig in The Last Kingdom, Pravik in HBO’s Chernobyl and Gary Cobb in The Day of the Jackal. Earlier in the year, Gerard appeared in Waiting for the Out, a series based on The Life Inside: A Memoir Of Prison, Family and Learning to be Free. Gerard’s personal life is just as fulfilling, having tied the knot with his other half, Sarah, in December 2017. The couple have two sons, Aiden and James.
Rebecca Ryan – Debbie Gallagher
Rebecca Ryan as Debbie Gallagher from Shameless(Image: Publicity photo)
Fans were left devastated when Debbie left the housing estate to join the army in Shameless’ sixth series. Similarly to Fiona, Debbie found herself burdened with maternal responsibilities due to Frank not being up to task.
Straight after leaving the series, Rebecca played Vicki MacDonald on Waterloo Road for two years. Similarly to her co-stars, she appeared in a string of hit soaps in the UK, such as Casualty, Doctors and Holby City.
In 2021, the Manchester-born actress joined the cast of Coronation Street, playing the role of Underworld PA Lydia Chambers. After stirring up a fair amount of trouble between Sarah Platt (Tina O’Brien) and Adam Barlow (Sam Robertson), including pushing Adam off a balcony, Lydia exited the soap in 2022. Rebecca married her partner Dan Acraman on 24 September 2022, with whom she shares daughters, Aurora, 3, Oriana, 1, with.
Maxine Peake – Veronica Fisher
Maxine Peake on Shameless(Image: Unknown)
Bolton native Maxine Peake was a huge fan favourite in the role of Veronica Fisher, who was the Gallagher’s neighbour and Fiona’s best friend. She and her husband Kev Ball (Dean Lennox Kelly) left Chatsworth in season four and were said to have been arrested for trying to buy a baby from a Romanian orphanage.
Also known for her work on Dinnerladies, Maxine’s biggest projects after Shameless include Silk, The Village, Anne, Say Nothing and Black Mirror, with her leading the 2017 episode Metalhead. In terms of films she’s worked on The Theory of Everything, Funny Cow, Wendell & Wild and I Swear.
Maxine has been open about her and her partner Pawlo Wintoniuk’s fertility struggles, with them enduring the heartache of failed IVF attempts and miscarriages. She said on BBC Radio 4: “I had three rounds but that was enough for me, I was done. It was so difficult physically and emotionally.
“You are absolutely pumped full of hormones, you’re tired, and I was working at the same time… You don’t have that luxury of taking time off. You have to find places where you can inject when you’re on a night shoot. In a grubby portable toilet, panicking that you’re going to infect yourself.”
Dean Lennox Kelly –
Dean Lennox Kelly (Image: Unknown)
While Veronica never returned to Shameless, Dean Lennox Kelly played Kev Ball once again in season eight. The barman confirmed in the show’s 100th episode that he and Veronica were still married and living in London.
Shortly after leaving the series, Dean played William Shakespeare in a 2007 episode of Doctor Who. On top of this, he has worked on The Invisibles, Married Single Other, Frankie and Jamestown.
Recent years have seen him play Curtis Plum on the Michelle Keegan series Brassic. Fans were delighted to see him pop on The 1% Club’s Soccer Aid Special. He shares two children with his wife Eugenie, a folk singer and writer.
Maggie O’Neill – Sheila Jackson
Fans saw Sheila Jackson, played by Maggie O’Neill, tie the knot with Frank in the third series(Image: Campbell Mark)
Maggie O’Neill played Frank’s girlfriend during the early years of Shameless. She suffered domestic abuse in the past, which left her with agoraphobia and anxiety. Sheila’s exit scenes as Maggie saw her leave Frank alone with their twins, Nigel and Delia Gallagher, after discovering he had not divorced his former wife Monica (Annabelle Apsion).
Prior to joining Shamless, Sheila was best known for her work on the Hollywood film Gorillas in the Mist and the music video for Simply Red’s Holding Back the Years. She went on to play Suzy Branning, the sister of Max and Jack, on EastEnders in 2008, but left after six months.
After this, Sheila’s appearances on TV shows were fleeting. Although she did provide memorable turns in New Tricks, Inspector George Gently, Death in Paradise, Midsomer Murders, Call the Midwife, Two Doors Down, Casualty and several other hit UK series.
Samantha Siddall – Mandy Maguire
The Maguires L-R: Shane, Mandy, Paddy, Jamie, Micky & Mimi
Mandy Maguire was the only daughter of the Maguires, the Gallagher family’s neighbours. Fans will remember that she is the mum of Lip’s daughter Katie and tended to stray away from her family’s criminal side.
Samantha Siddall’s character sadly died in a gas explosion at the end of Series 6. Her death was a dramatic storyline device orchestrated by Maureen Tudor (Julia Ford), who intentionally caused the blast to get revenge on Mandy’s father, Paddy (Sean Gilder).
The actress has appeared in just a handful of programmes since leaving Shameless. She appeared in episodes of Casualty, Terri Carmichael, Doctors and Hollyoaks.
Rebecca Atkinson – Karen Maguire
Rebecca Atkinson as Karen in Shameless(Image: Channel 4)
Karen, Sheila’s wayward daughter on the hit show Shameless, caused a stir when she notoriously carried out a risqué act with Lip and Ian beneath the kitchen table before diving into a taboo romance with Frank Gallagher.
After a tumultuous period, Karen found stability and took charge of The Jockey pub along with her new husband Jamie Maguire (Aaron McCusker). She was one of the few characters who appeared in every season of Shameless
Rebecca’s biggest post-Shameless projects saw her appear in several episodes of River City, Flatmates and Coronation Street. The latter saw her play Mandy Waring, a a prison guard working at Highfield Prison who entered into a relationship with inmate Rob Donovan (Marc Baylis).
In another Shameless romance, Rebecca married her co-star, Ben Batt, who played Joe Pritchard, last year. The couple have a son, Jack, who was born in 2016.
Steve McBride – James McAvoy
Steve (James McAvoy) and Fiona (Anne-Marie Duff) in Shameless
Finally, the biggest star to emerge from Shameless is undoubtedly James McAvoy. Once Hollywood came calling, he left the series alongside his future wife Anne-Marie at the end of the second series.
In 2005 he played Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, arguably the best part of the C.S. Lewis adaptation. The following years saw him shine in The Last King of Scotland, Atonement and Wanted.
For many film fans, McAvoy is best known for playing Charles Xavier in the X-Men reboot series. Taking on the role made famous by Patrick Stewart, McAvoy brought inside the mind of a man who can read everyone’s minds.
If all that wasn’t enough, he played a man with 23 dissociative identities in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, led It Chapter Two and portrayed Lord Asriel in the BBC fantasy series His Dark Materials from 2019 to 2022.