''A Passionate Woman'' is a British two-part

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

mini-series that aired on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's Flagship (broadcasting), flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News ...

from 11 to 18 April 2010.

Plot

In 1950s Yorkshire, Betty Stevenson, a married mother of one, falls in love with her Polish neighbour, Alex Crazenovski aka "Craze." The two begin an affair and Craze sends a letter to Betty asking her to run away with him. She responds in kind and her letter is found by Craze's pregnant wife, who promptly seeks him out at the fairground where he works and shoots him dead. With her lover dead, Betty continues her life with husband Donald and baby Mark. The story then moves forward to the 1980s as Mark gets married and her affair becomes public knowledge.

Inspiration

Kay Mellor was inspired to write the story after her own mother confessed to having an affair with a Polish neighbour in the 1950s when living in a poorer area of

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, 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 thi ...

. Just like the story, the unnamed Pole was killed which ended her mother's affair which she had kept secret for 30 years before revealing all. Mellor explained that with her mother being dead for three years, it was a way of bringing her back to life. The work was originally a play that had first been performed at the

West Yorkshire Playhouse Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Having originally opened in 1970 in a different location in Leeds, it reopened as West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Quarry Hill, in March 1990. After a refurbishment in 2018-20 ...

in 1992 before moving on to the West End. Mellor admitted that the film rights had been mooted but she feared the production would end up with '...

Cher Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industr ...

on a roof-top in Detroit.'

Filming locations

Screen Yorkshire Following a review of the film infrastructure in England during 2000, the UK Film Council set up nine Regional Screen Agencies, one in each of the regions of England, to deliver support for film-making, exhibition and related media activities. Th ...

invested £250,000 in the programme and supplied crew for the filming locations. External scenes were filmed at

Roundhay Park Roundhay Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is one of the biggest city parks in Europe.Only Richmond Park (London), Phoenix Park (Dublin) and Silesian Culture and Recreation Park ( Chorzów, Poland) are larger. It covers more than of par ...

, Hyde Terrace, Hyde Park Cinema, Blenheim Square and the City Centre Market in Leeds. Additional filming was done at

Bradford City Hall Bradford City Hall is a 19th-century town hall in Centenary Square, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building which has a distinctive clock tower. History Before its relocation, between 1847 and 1873, the town hall ...

St Luke's Hospital St. Luke's Hospital may refer to: Australia * St Lukes Private Hospital, Launceston, Tasmania * St Luke's Private Hospital, , Sydney, New South Wales Canada * Hôpital Saint-Luc, Montreal, Quebec China * Shanghai Chest Hospital, formerly St. Luke ...

, and King's Hall and Winter Gardens in Bradford. Other parts were also recorded at Studio 81 in Leeds.

Episodes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Passionate Woman, A 2010 British television series debuts 2010 British television series endings 2010s British drama television series BBC television dramas BBC high definition shows 2010s British television miniseries Television shows set in West Yorkshire English-language television shows Television series set in the 1950s Television series set in the 1980s