Widows (TV series)
| Widows | |
|---|---|
DVD cover of Series One and Two
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| Created by | Lynda La Plante |
| Starring |
Ann Mitchell Fiona Hendley Maureen O'Farrell Eva Mottley Debby Bishop Maurice O'Connell David Calder Kate Williams Paul Jesson |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 12 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Euston Films for Thames Television |
| Distributor | FremantleMedia |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Original release | 16 March 1983 – 8 May 1985 |
Widows was a British primetime television crime drama that was broadcast in 1983 and 1985, produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and aired on the ITV network. Two six-part series were written by crime writer Lynda La Plante. The executive producer for the series was Verity Lambert.
The haunting music heard at intervals throughout the first series and in the closing credits of the final episode of both series is "What Is Life to Me Without Thee", from the opera L'Orfeo, sung here by Kathleen Ferrier.
Three armed robbers — Harry Rawlins, Terry Miller, and Joe Perelli — are killed during an armed robbery. They are survived by their widows, Dolly Rawlins (Ann Mitchell), Shirley Miller (Fiona Hendley), and Linda Perelli (Maureen O'Farrell). With the police applying pressure, and a rival gang intending to take over Harry Rawlins' crime business, the widows turn to Dolly for leadership.
She uses Harry's famous "ledgers", a cache of books detailing all his robberies over the years, to find the details of the failed robbery, and, enlisting the help of a fourth woman, Bella O'Reilly (Eva Mottley), they resolve to pull off the raid themselves. At the same time, they discover the "fourth man" in the raid escaped—leaving their husbands for dead. Dolly must contend with the police and the gang, as well as her fellow widows, agitating for vengeance.
The first series of Widows concluded with the widows successfully pulling off the raid, and escaping to Rio. In the final scenes, however, they discovered that the "fourth man" was in fact Harry Rawlins (Maurice O'Connell), Dolly's husband.
A second series followed in 1985. This series saw the widows return from Rio to track down Harry Rawlins, revealed at the conclusion of the original Widows to be the surviving "fourth man" from the original raid. Harry is determined to pay back the widows for staging his raid, and the widows have a score to settle with him for running out on their husbands. For this second series, Debby Bishop took over the role of Bella, after Eva Mottley had died from a drugs overdose.
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