Holderness was born in Hampstead, London. After taking her A-levels, she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She began her acting career with Manchester’s 69 Theatre Company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peer Gynt and as Desdemona in Catch My Soul. She has worked consistently in theatre, radio, film and television. West End plays include The Female Odd Couple, Why Not Stay for Breakfast, The Male of the Species and the highly acclaimed one-woman play Our Kid. Sue regularly appears in The Vagina Monologues and she is part of the cast of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners. She has toured the country in numerous plays and worked in several repertory companies. Much of Sue’s career has been spent doing Alan Ayckbourn plays, three of which she toured with John Challis, who plays Boycie to Sue’s long-suffering Marlene in Only Fools And Horses. The Green, Green Grass ran from 2005 - 2009. A total of four series and three Christmas Specials were created. Sue played the role of Annie in the 2010 UK Tour of Calendar Girls. She played Annie again in 2011She played Celia in the 2012 tour and went back to playing Annie in the Autumn 2012 tour. Television roles include Marianne in The Sandbaggers, Bless This House, as Pamela Huntley-Johnson in the episode The Bells Are Ringing in which she was credited as Susan Holderness, as Liz in It Takes a Worried Man, Jo in The Brief, Cleopatra IV in The Cleopatras; as Laura Doolan, a wife of serial bigamist"Confident" Clive Cosgrove in the Minder episode A Number of Old Wives Tales ; episodes of The New Avengers, Thriller, Sob Sisters, Growing Pains, Doctors, Lime Street with Robert Wagner, and Murder in Suburbia. She played Rowan Atkinson's love interest, Lorraine, in Canned Laughter, and did numerous impersonations in two series of End of Part One. She played Maggie in Dear John, by John Sullivan, Joan Forrester in Heartbeat for YTV, Joan Travis in Revelations, and Rachel’s mum in Cold Feet, also for Granada. Films include That'll Be the Day and It Could Happen to You . Sue also appeared in the low budget feature Meat Draw and Out of Sight for Granada. Sue regularly appears in pantomime. and has appeared in productions across the UK. In 2014, Holderness appeared in the BBC One medical drama Casualty as Alice Sweeney. In 2018 onwards, Holderness has appeared as Mrs Rossi in the sitcom Still Open All Hours.
