Katherine Parkinson (born 9 March 1978[1]) is an English actor who voiced engineer Danika Meanwhile, effectively the one-off assistant of the Seventh Doctor in the Big Finish audio adventure The Death Collectors.
Parkinson is more familiar as Jen Barber, the long-suffering boss of the IT department featured in The IT Crowd. She is also well-known as Martin Clunes' secretary in several series of Doc Martin, a programme in which Ian McNeice also plays a major role.
A much-in-demand comedic actor, she has been a member of the regular casts of several series in the 2000s and 2010s, including: The Great Outdoors, co-starring Ruth Jones and Gwyneth Keyworth; Whites, written by The Shakespeare Code actor Matt King; and The Old Guys starring Roger Lloyd Pack, Clive Swift and Jane Asher.
She was also a main character in The Grinning Man, the feature-length episode of the originally Verity Lambert-produced Jonathan Creek, which introduced Sheridan Smith as a member of the regular cast.