It’s a Woman’s World – Nostalgia Central

1 9 6 4 (UK)
4 x 55 minute episodes

This short series of stand-alone Friday night plays from Granada Television presented four stories of women of different ages. The first play was about a teenager, and the last about a woman in her forties. Each play was named after its central character.

The debut episode ‘Virginia’ (by Dennis Woolf) aired on Friday 4 September 1964 and starred Julie Samuel in the title role.

Teenage model ‘Ginny’ was engaged to Shane (John Collins), a curious mixture of cowboy and public school boy who used her flat as a warehouse for slot machines, and wanted to make him jealous.

It only took a jibe about her innocence from her flat-mate Honey (Judith Smith) for her to plan an elaborate seduction scene with the store detective Casanova (Ray Brooks) at their place of work.

The bogey of the piece was Cromwell (Hugh Futcher), a “dirty old man” that the girls considered a creep.

The title character in Margaret Drabble’s ‘Laura’ (played by Patricia England) was a lonely young new mother. Her husband was out at work all day, and the only people she saw were the milkman (Trevor Bannister), the health visitor (Daphne Oxenford), and a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman (John Rees).  The episode aired on Friday 11 September 1964.

The 30-year-old title heroine of Anthony Linter’s play ‘Julie’ (played by Australian-born Diana Fairfax) had got just about everything (but happiness) through her ruthlessness and singleness of purpose. She was a successful career woman –  a top Fleet Street columnist – but the qualities that got her to the top of the newspaper tree had wrecked her private life.

Julie’s husband, Brewster, was played by Lawrence Payne, and Judy Cornwell played her younger sister, Claire. The episode aired on Friday 18 September 1964.

Norman Crisp’s ‘Jean’ aired on Friday 25 September 1964 and examined the problems facing the titular character (played by Petra Davies, pictured above) as she chose between marriage and a career.

Should she take the job of store manageress which had just been offered? Or follow her boyfriend (Richard Coleman) – who had walked out of her life to take a job in London – in the hope that he would marry her?

Episodes

Virginia | Laura | Julie | Jean