In 1990, Coleman appeared as Jess, a girl from Lancashire brought up by a strict Pentecostal mother, in the acclaimed BBC television drama Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based on Jeanette Winterson's novel of the same name.
Other television appearances in the 1980s and '90s included roles in The Bill and Inspector Morse, the short-lived comedy series Freddie and Max, with Anne Bancroft, a drama about homelessness, Sweet Nothing and, another lesbian role, as Barb Gale in the political satire Giving Tongue (1996).