Freda Kelsall

Freda Margaret Kelsall (born April 1938 in Southport[1][2]) is a British writer, theatre director and former teacher who is best known as the main writer (1975–1996; occasionally also a presenter in the last few of those years) of the schools television series How We Used To Live.[3]

Early career

In the 1960s she was a schoolteacher in London and had a novel published.[4] In this period she appeared in epilogues for Rediffusion, the then ITV franchise holder; in October 1967, when she was "just starting a teaching career", she contributed to a series of epilogues on religious education[5][6] and also discussed a number of books in similar epilogues under the title 'Outlook and Insight',[7] for example William Mayne's Earthfasts,[8] Ivan Southall's To the Wild Sky[9] and Mollie Hunter's The Kelpie's Pearls.[10]

Later career

In 1970 she moved to Alresford, Hampshire, where she initially continued her teaching career, also inspiring Colin Firth to begin his acting career.[11] In 1980, heavily committed to work for Yorkshire Television,[12] she briefly moved to Leeds and then in 1982 to Heptonstall, just outside Hebden Bridge[13] where she founded the Bridge Theatre Company in 1987 and ran it for many years.[14][15] She continued to direct plays for this company until at least 2006.[16] On 31 March 1981 her play The Reason of Things, produced by YTV, was networked by ITV.[17] She had two further plays networked in 1984, Sweet Echo on 22 January, produced by Yorkshire,[18] and Grand Duo on 29 July, produced by LWT.[19] Her play The Index Has Gone Fishing, made by Central Television and filmed in Pershore, Worcestershire,[20] was networked by ITV on 28 June 1987.[21] In 1987 she wrote an episode of the BBC drama series One by One.[22] She also wrote six episodes of Emmerdale Farm in the spring of 1981 and six further episodes that autumn.[23] Her most recent television work credited by the British Film Institute consists of three episodes of Heartbeat in the mid-1990s.[24]

She is also the author of a number of books based around How We Used to Live, and of a number of stage plays which have appeared in print.[25] In 2010, she presented a retrospective of the How We Used to Live series at Hebden Bridge's 500th anniversary festival.[26]

References

  1. ↑ Find My Past
  2. ↑ 2011 interview
  3. ↑ The Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Research Guide, pages 2194–2206, Kaleidoscope Publishing, 2010
  4. ↑ Alresford Remembered. 1997
  5. ↑ 2011 interview
  6. ↑ The Times, p. 16, 17 October 1967
  7. ↑ 2011 interview
  8. ↑ The Times, p. 12, 12 January 1968
  9. ↑ The Times, p. 14, 25 March 1968
  10. ↑ The Times, p. 14, 24 June 1968
  11. ↑ Alresford Remembered, 1997
  12. ↑ Alresford Remembered, 1997
  13. ↑ 2011 interview
  14. ↑ 2011 interview
  15. ↑ Bridge Theatre website
  16. ↑ Profile of the actress Amanda Howard
  17. ↑ The Times, p. 29, 31 March 1981
  18. ↑ The Times, p. 23, 21 January 1984
  19. ↑ The Times, p. 31, 28 July 1984
  20. ↑ Alresford Remembered, 1997
  21. ↑ The Times, p. 23, 27 June 1987
  22. ↑ BBC Genome
  23. ↑ The Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Research Guide, pages 1700 & 1701, Kaleidoscope Publishing, 2010
  24. ↑ BFI website
  25. ↑ Amazon.co.uk
  26. ↑ Hebden 500 website
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/11/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.