Sheila Allen:Dead

[Guest]

Anyone remember Bouquet Of Barbed Wire?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/oct/20/sheila-allen

[Flosshilde]

Not me.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Yes, Mandryka. It was a series that had the nation thoroughly gripped. I know as much because my mother, who hardly ever bothered with television (other than when her husband was on it), was glued to it.

I being 13/14 was too young to be hooked, but I can remember the vast subtlety with which Frank Finlay held the screen. As for Shiela Allen in that difficult triangle, she was so elegantly attracitve and heroic a figure that you wanted to say ... 'Good for you. You go and have your big affair. You deserve it!'

[Flosshilde]

It's not quite true that I don't remember it - I have a vague memory of it (the original version) being considered over-heated tosh.

[Mandryka]

It's not quite true that I don't remember it - I have a vague memory of it (the original version) being considered over-heated tosh.

Yes, but it was high quality over-heated tosh, Flossie. Frank Finlay gave a characteristically excellent performance as the man obsessively in love with his spoiled daughter (Susan Penhaligon - never better). Sheila Allen was the former wife of RSC director David Jones, who died in 2008.