Gwen most recently played Vi Highway in Eastenders and is one of Britain's leading actresses, well known for her many popular television and theatre roles.

On TV she has played Ann Foster in Coronation Street; Peg in Heartbeat for Yorkshire Television; the title role in three series of Barbara for Carlton TV; Rita Simcock in two series of the BAFTA-nominated A Bit of a Do; Margaret in three series of the BBC Wales drama Belonging; Gen in two series of Conjugal Rites; Duty Free; Class Act with Joanna Lumley; Pilgrim's Rest; A Perfect State; Inspector Morse (guest role); Murder Most Horrid (guest role); Moving Story; Wycliffe; Sharp End; Screaming; Some Kind of Life; Ties of Blood, The Billy Plays with Kenneth Branagh; Keeping Tom Nice; Happy Christmas, I Love You; Sauce for the Goose for HTV; Sob Sisters for Central; Colin's Sandwich; Yes, Prime Minister; Antigone; Forever Young; Ding Brass and Ripping Yarns. Recently Gwen has had guest roles on Holby City, Doctors, The Tracy Ullman Show, Casualty, Doc Martin, Midsome Murders, Table 12, Born and Bred, and Fat Friends.

Her wealth of theatrical experience includes: The Croft (UK Tour & Online); Night Must Fall (UK Tour); Driving Miss Daisy (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin and previously the UK Tour); Sunspots (Hampstead Theatre), Before the Party (UK Tour); The Last of the Duty Free (UK Tour); The Butterfly Lion (UK Tour/ Leicester Curve and Derby Theatre); Calendar Girls (UK Tour); Quartet (UK Tour); Prick up your Ears (Comedy Theatre and UK Tour); About Alice (UK tour), Catherine in Arms and the Man (UK tour); Moment of Weakness (UK tour); Picasso's Women on national tour, starring with Jerry Hall; Lettice and Lovage (Theatre Royal, Bath and tour); the title role in the national tour of Shirley Valentine; Heritage (Hampstead Theatre and national tour); The Glass Menagerie (Derby Playhouse); Mother Tongue (Greenwich Theatre); Clouds and Ripen our Darkness (Royal Court); Dead Sheep (Bush Theatre), Skirmishes and Spookhouse (Hampstead Theatre); Trumpets and Raspberries (Phoenix Theatre); The Big Knife and Conjugal Rites (Watford Palace Theatre); Light up the Sky (Windsor Theatre Royal and Globe Theatre); Top Girls (Royal Court and New York); The Maintenance Man (Comedy Theatre); Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Time of my Life (Vaudeville Theatre and national Tour); Gertrude in Sir Peter Hall's Hamlet (Gielgud Theatre and national Tour), Mo in Love (West Yorkshire Playhouse), a play written by her husband, Graham Reid, Allelujah! as Lucille, at the Bridge Theatre and Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes (UK Tour).

Gwen's film appearances include: Small Town Killers, Another Mother's Son, Death, Hope and Charity, The Lady in the Van, Richard's Things and Monty Python's Life of Brian.