television play
A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contrast to a television movi ...
, written by
Paula Milne
Paula Milne is a British screenwriter. Her works include '' The Politician's Wife'', ''The Virgin Queen'', ''Chandler & Co'', '' Die Kinder'', ''Second Sight'', ''Driving Ambition'', ''Small Island'' and ''Endgame''.
Her first single drama ...
, directed by Tim King,Lorna /ref> and produced by Brenda Reid. It was first shown
BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
on Sunday 11 August 1985, and on repeated 28 August 1985.''Radio Times'', 24–30 August 1985
Content
''Queen of Hearts'' starred
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
an actress
Lorna Heilbron
Lorna Heilbron (born 8 June 1948) is a Glasgow-born Scottish actress.
She appeared in television series such as '' Ace of Wands'', ''Van der Valk'', ''Blake's 7'', ''Taggart'', ''Lovejoy'' and '' Hazell''.
She also starred in the horror film ...
as Ann Drury, a bored, frustrated, but attractive middle-class housewife living in an area where
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
had begun to arouse comment. Two factors encouraged Mrs Drury briefly to try out being a prostitute herself: an admission by her husband (
Paul Jesson
Paul Jesson is an English stage, television and film actor and an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He has played leading roles at the National Theatre and the RSC and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Suppo ...
) that he himself had once consorted with a call girl and her trying on some black lingerie belonging to her teenaged daughter ( Dominique Barnes) while she was alone in the house. Her experience with a client gave her a fresh sense of her sexuality, though her husband's rather underwhelmed response when she sought to entice him with lace underwear and stockings had the effect of returning her to her previous rather staid existence.