The Reviews of Some Women, BBC1 - August 1969. Daily Mirror

Daily Mirror 27/8/69

Jack Bell

Women behind bars break out

It has taken more than two years for the BBC to get round to screening “Some Women” (BBC-1, 10.40 tonight), writes Jack Bell.

This controversial programme is about four women who have been in prison. It is produced by Tony Garnett, who was responsible for “Cathy Come Home.”

Garnett, who is now producing plays for the rival channel through his Kestrel Productions’ tie-up with London Weekend TV, had intended “Some Women” to be seen in the Wednesday Play slot.

Originally called “Five Women,” it is based on Tony Parker’s book of the same title, featuring interviews with the women.

Garnett and director Roy Battersby dispensed with a script.

BLURRED
Instead, they asked five actresses first to read the interviews, meet the ex-prisoners who provided them – and then give their own dramatized versions of these true-life stories in front of the cameras.

But then BBC chiefs decided not to screen it as a Wednesday play. They felt it ‘blurred the border between fact and fiction.’

Now, after two years, the programme has been taken over by the Features Department and now goes out as a documentary.

Playing the parts of the four ex-prisoners are Fionnula Flanagan, Edith MacArthur, Cleo Sylvestre and Natalie Kemp.