Shelley (TV series)

Shelley is a British sitcom made by Thames Television and originally broadcast on ITV from 1979 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1992, with occasional hiatuses. Hywel Bennett starred as James Shelley, a sardonic, 28-year-old, anti-establishment postgraduate and career income tax dodger. Belinda Sinclair played Shelley's girlfriend Frances, and Josephine Tewson appeared regularly as his Landlady, Edna Hawkins. The series was created by Peter Tilbury who also wrote the first three series. Writing duties for subsequent episodes were handed over to Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin (both of whom would later go on to write the hugely successful Drop the Dead Donkey for Channel 4), with other episodes written by Barry Pilton, Colin Bostock-Smith, Bernard McKenna and David Firth. All 71 episodes were produced and directed by Anthony Parker.

Series seven was titled on screen The Return of Shelley, again starring Hywel Bennett as James Shelley, and was broadcast in 1988. This time round, Shelley is (still) separated from Frances, and lives on his own, doing his best to avoid obtaining gainful employment. The series begins with Shelley returning to the UK from Saudi Arabia, where he had taught English for a few years, only to find that his calls to his old friends are now screened by answer phones and that yuppieness has taken root in his old neighbourhood. Subsequent series returned to the on-screen title of Shelley.

For the final two series, we see Shelley sharing a house with Ted Bishop played by David Ryall. Ted's house is the only one left in his street, the other residences having been demolished to make way for a leisure centre. Shelley moves in as lodger to help Ted with his fight against the developers who want to demolish the house Ted has lived in his whole life.

Book

The first series was rewritten as a novel, Shelley, by Peter Tilbury and Colin Bostock-Smith (New English Library, paperback, 1 April 1980, ISBN 0450049310).^[1][2]

DVD release

The first five series have been released by Network, on Region 2 DVD in 2007, 2009 and 2011: The sixth series is scheduled to follow at some point.

References

External links

• Shelley at BBC Online
• Shelley at TV.com
• Shelley at the Internet Movie Database
• Shelley at the British Comedy Guide