Alison O'Donnell (actress)

O'Donnell was born in the early 1980s and grew up in Motherwell with two elder sisters. She initially studied international law at university but dropped out after three months to take up acting.^[1]

Early in her acting career O'Donnell mainly worked in theatre, featuring in productions of Boys, The Hard Man, Eigengrau, and Yerma.^[2] She had small roles in BBC television productions Feel the Force (2006) and Holby City (2012).^[3] She played a lead role in My Romantic History, a play at the Edinburgh Fringe which won the 2011 Fringe First award.^[1]

From 2013 to present, she has appeared in the main role of DS Alison 'Tosh' McIntosh in the Scottish television crime drama Shetland and is set to depart the series later this year.^{[2][4][5] [6]}

In 2017, she was part of the cast of the BBC Radio 4 play Synonymous, which was written by her partner, D.C. Jackson.^[1]

O'Donnell's partner is Scottish playwright D.C. Jackson; they have two children.^[7] They met while O'Donnell was playing the lead role in Jackson's play My Romantic History at the Traverse in Edinburgh but became a couple only later.^[1]