Theatre
As a member of Scottish Youth Theatre, she was originally obliged to appear as "C. P. Grogan" because there was already a member of Equity named Claire Grogan. (The other Claire Grogan went on to become a photographer.) She would later drop the i from her first name.
Grogan played the part of Rita in Educating Rita at Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1987.
In 1996, she played a fitness instructor on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the play Lady Macbeth Firmed My Buttocks.
Film and television
While working as a waitress at the Spaghetti Factory restaurant in Glasgow, she was spotted by film director Bill Forsyth. This led to her breakthrough acting role in 1981's Gregory's Girl as Susan. Because of her facial wound there were objections from the producers, but Forsyth refused to recast the role and Grogan was filmed mostly in profile. When filmed in close up, makeup artists covered Grogan's scar with Derma wax.
In 1984, she played Charlotte in Forsyth's Comfort and Joy. In 1985, she was the receptionist in the BBC Television version of Blott on the Landscape. Grogan appeared in the second episode of the acclaimed The Monocled Mutineer in 1986. She had a recurring role playing Dave Lister's would-be love-interest, Kristine Kochanski, in series 1, 2 and 6 of the programme Red Dwarf. However, she was later deemed too old for the role. Grogan has also appeared in the sitcom Father Ted (episode "Rock a Hula Ted") in a thinly veiled parody of Sinéad O'Connor and in the television soap opera EastEnders as Ian Beale's love interest, Ros Thorne (1997–1998).
In 1992, Grogan appeared as Mary Catto in series 8 episode 21 of the detective fiction television programme Taggart (again credited as C. P. Grogan).
She had the role of Maggie in a 1998 comedy Jilting Joe, played an eye surgeon in a 2002 short film Bury It, appeared in the medical soap opera Doctors in 2003, and performed another Edinburgh Festival Fringe play Forbidden in 2004, as Lily, married to a Second World War Nazi officer but falling in love with a young Jewish woman.
In 2006, Grogan portrayed Sandra Reeves, a control-freak office manager, in the film The Penalty King played Cathy in an episode of the BBC paranormal drama series Sea of Souls, and May, Danny's mother, in the Scottish sitcom Legit. She appeared in the music video for Peter Kay and Matt Lucas' charity single "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", recorded for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day 2007, along with two TV films Wedding Belles and Forgiven.
In 2011, Grogan had a role in the teen drama television series Skins as Shelley, mother of Mini McGuinness and played Jenny Ferris in the Scottish gangster film The Wee Man in 2013.
She starred as Myriam in the 2017 film Delirium, filmed entirely at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Grogan co-presented, alongside the chef and author Gary Maclean, BBC Scotland's Corner Shop Cook-Off. The six episode series originally aired from 19 February to 25 March 2020.
