Jill Hyem

Jill Hyem (born 1937) is a British radio and television writer and former actress.

Hyem was born in Putney and brought up in Devon and East Sheen. She studied at the Webber Douglas School of Dramatic Art. Early experience as an actress saw her perform at the Connaught Theatre Worthing, where one of her roles was as Eliza Doolittle in "Pygmalion", and in films such as "The Trunk" with Phil Carey. In 1962 she made her West End debut in Goodnight Mrs Puffin with Irene Handl. On television she appeared in "Richard the Lionheart" with Dermot Walsh, Dixon of Dock Green, Sergeant Cork, and as the daughter of Jimmy Edwards and Beryl Reid in the comedy series Bold as Brass.

Hyem's writing career began to develop when she became one of the principal writers on the radio soap opera The Dales (formerly Mrs Dale's Diary). When that series was ending, she was asked to devise a more contemporary replacement (with Alan Downer) and Waggoner's Walk was commissioned. The two writing partners stayed with the series over its 11-year run. She has also written ote 30 radio plays including the lesbian love story "Now She Laughs, Now She Cries", "A Shape Like Piccadilly" which tackled adult illiteracy, and the thriller "Remember Me" with Jill Balcon and Julian Glover which won the annual Giles Cooper award. Several of her radio plays became theatre productions including "Equal Terms", "Life Sentence" and "Thank You" which was renamed "Post Mortems" for the stage.

Her TV works include: the popular and BAFTA-nominated drama Tenko (1981-5) for which she wrote half the episodes (Anne Valery wrote the other half), secret agent drama Wish Me Luck which she co-created with long-time collaborator (and Tenko creator) Lavinia Warner, the groundbreaking nurses drama Angels, episodes of Wendy Craig's Nanny, anthology series "Sharing Time", the first series of sex and sailing soap opera Howards' Way, a mini-series adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's Act of Will, period costume drama The House of Eliott, the Campion episodes "The Case of the Late Pig" and "Sweet Danger", the Miss Marple mystery At Bertram's Hotel, and "Body and Soul" with Kristin Scott Thomas for which she was nominated for a BAFTA.

Her other theatre plays include: "Buzz", an adaptation of "Lorna Doone", and more recently, in 2010, "We'll Always Have Paris".

Selected filmography

External links