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Rachael is the only child of the actress Diana Rigg (best remembered as Emma Peel in The Avengers) and Scottish landowner Archibald Hugh Stirling. Her parents are divorced.

Rachael grew up in London and in Scotland. She went as a boarder to Wycombe Abbey School, Buckinghamshire, then to the University of Edinburgh where she took a degree in the History of Art. She made her stage debut in 1997 in a National Youth Theatre production of Othello. Her screen debut was a year later in Still Crazy (1998), - playing a British comedy film.

Rachael speaks Russian, is keen on riding, smokes Marlboros, and sings soprano and alto.

Until September, 2003, she shared her small west London house with her boyfriend of two years, disc-jockey John Lycett-Green, the son of writer Candida Lycett-Green and the grandson of Sir John Betjeman. She commented when they separated: "I live on my own, because the boyfriend is no more."

Rachael's theatre credits include:

LOOK BACK IN ANGER (Theatre Royal, Bath, 2006) - playing Helena Charles
TAMBURLAINE (Bristol Old Vic, 2005) - playing Zenocrate
THEATRE OF BLOOD (National Theatre, 2005) - playing Miranda Lionheart
ANNA IN THE TROPICS (Hampstead Theatre, 2004) - playing Conchita
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (Royal Haymarket Theatre, 2003) - playing Hester Worsley
HELPLESS (Donmar Warehouse, 2000) - playing Frankie
DANCING AT LUGHNASA (Arts Theatre, 1998) - playing Kate
THE ODD COUPLE (Arts Theatre, 1997) - playing Olive
OTHELLO (Royal Theatre, Glasgow, & Bloomsbury Theatre, 1995) - playing Desdemona