''Queenie's Castle'' is a British

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

set in early 1970s

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

, West Yorkshire. The series was made for the ITV by

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

and aired from 1970 to 1972. The series starred British actress

Diana Dors Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer. Dors came to public notice as a blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Dors was p ...

Plot

Starring Diana Dors as the eponymous Queenie Shepherd, the series revolved around the lives and, often illegal, activities of the residents of a Social Housing Development in early 1970s Leeds, West Yorkshire. Queenie's husband Lionel never appears, leaving the neighbours and viewers alike to assume he is in prison. Various excuses are made, such as "He's working on the motorway in Carlisle", but this changed throughout the series. Queenie shared her flat with four men - her shady brother-in-law Jack, and her sons: labourer Raymond, van driver Bunny, and the unemployed Douglas. The family's

archenemy In literature, an archenemy (sometimes spelled as arch-enemy) is the main enemy of someone. In fiction, it is a character who is the protagonist's, commonly a hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional cha ...

, Mrs Petty, lives on a ground floor flat and runs a

cake shop A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who wish ...

in a row of shops at the bottom of the flats. Mrs Petty's main friend is Mrs Blakely who also dislikes the Shepherds. Although Mrs Petty is seen to live in a ground floor flat—and this is made perfectly obvious throughout the series—on more than one occasion she claims to live next door to the Shepherds, who quite clearly live several floors up.

Production

A Middle East Soldier Revisits Britain- Life in Wartime Leeds, England, UK, 1943 D15678

Produced by

, the scripts were written by

Keith Waterhouse Keith Spencer Waterhouse (6 February 1929 – 4 September 2009) was a British novelist and newspaper columnist and the writer of many television series. Biography Keith Waterhouse was born in Hunslet, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. H ...

(author of '' Billy Liar'') and

Willis Hall Willis Edward Hall (6 April 1929 – 7 March 2005) was an English playwright and radio, television and film writer who drew on his working-class roots in Leeds for much of his writing. Willis formed an extremely prolific partnership with h ...

. The remaining four episodes of series one were recorded in black and white due to the ITV

colour strike The Colour Strike was a period of industrial action by technicians at all ITV companies from 13 November 1970 to 8 February 1971 (although some shows made during this period in black-and-white were having their first transmission as late as Dec ...

. Although the location was unspecified on screen, parts of the series were filmed in Quarry Hill,

. The council flats, where it was filmed have since been demolished. They were notable as the first council flats of their kind, built in

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style in the 1930s.

Cast

- Queenie Shepherd * Freddie Fletcher - Raymond Herbert Shepherd * Brian Marshall - Bernard Anthony "Bunny" Shepherd *

Barrie Rutter Barrie Thomas Rutter OBE (born 12 December 1946) is an English actor and the founder and former artistic director of the Northern Broadsides theatre company based in Dean Clough complex, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Biography Rutter was ...

- Douglas Fairbanks Shepherd *

Tony Caunter Anthony Patrick Caunter (born 22 September 1937) is a Retired British actor best known for his role as Jack Shepherd in the Yorkshire TV sitcom ''Queenie's Castle'' and also his portrayal of Roy Evans in ''EastEnders'' from 1994 to 2003. The s ...

- Jack Henry Shepherd *

Lynne Perrie Lynne Perrie (born Jean Dudley; 7 April 1931 – 24 March 2006) was an English actress, singer and television personality, best known as Mrs Casper in Ken Loach's 1969 film '' Kes'', Mrs Petty in the television series '' Queenie's Castle'', and ...

- Mrs Edith Petty *

Bryan Mosley Bryan Mosley (25 August 1931 – 9 February 1999) was a British actor, best known for his role as grocer Alf Roberts in the long-running ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street''. Early life Mosley was born in Leeds, an only child, to Agnes Basquil ...

- Jeremy, the landlord *

Kathy Staff Kathy Staff (born Minnie Higginbottom; 12 July 1928 – 13 December 2008) was an English actress known for her work on British television. She is best known for her portrayal of Nora Batty in ''Last of the Summer Wine'', the longest running sit ...

- Mrs Blakely

Episodes

Series 1 * We Humbly Beseech (5 November 1970) * The Great Debate (12 November 1970) * They Also Served (19 November 1970) * Just Good Friends (26 November 1970) * Trial By Fury (3 December 1970) * Unaccustomed As I Am (10 December 1970) Series 2 * Sweetness And Light (3 June 1971) * The Ladykillers (10 June 1971) * The Breadwinner (17 June 1971) * Industrial Relations (24 June 1971) * On The Wagon (1 July 1971) * Castles In The Air (8 July 1971) Series 3 * The Prowler (1 August 1972) * New Broom (8 August 1972) * The One That Got Away (15 August 1972) * England Expects (22 August 1972) * Mr Faintheart (29 August 1972) * The Patter Of Tiny Feet (5 September 1972)

Reception

According to the BFI, "Dors proved so popular as the brassy Queenie that after the third and final series, she and Caunter essentially reprised their characters under different names for the rugby league sitcom All Our Saturdays (ITV, 1973)."

DVD releases

All three series of ''Queenie's Castle'' were released (separately) by Simply Media in May 2009. Network has released a three-disc box set of the complete series in August 2009.

References

External links

* *{{British Comedy Guide, tv, queenies_castle Television series by Yorkshire Television Television series by ITV Studios 1970s British sitcoms 1970 British television series debuts 1972 British television series endings ITV sitcoms Television shows set in Yorkshire Television shows set in Leeds English-language television shows