| Queenie's Castle | |
|---|---|
 Main cast | |
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Written by | Keith Waterhouse Willis Hall |
| Starring | Diana Dors Freddie Fletcher Brian Marshall Barrie Rutter Tony Caunter Lynne Perrie Bryan Mosley |
| Theme music composer | Cliff Twemlow |
| Opening theme | "The Greatest Show on Earth" |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 18 |
| Production | |
| Producers | Graham Evans (Series 1) Ian Davidson (Series 2-3) |
| Editor | Tim Ritson |
| Production company | Yorkshire Television |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 5 November 1970 (1970-11-05) – 5 September 1972 (1972-09-05) |
Queenie's Castle is a Britishsitcom set in early 1970sLeeds, West Yorkshire. The series was made for theITV byYorkshire Television and aired from 1970 to 1972. The series starred British actressDiana Dors.[1]
Starring Diana Dors as the eponymous Queenie Shepherd, the series revolved around the lives and, often illegal, activities of the residents of aSocial Housing Development in early 1970s Leeds, West Yorkshire. Queenie's husband Lionel never appears, leaving the neighbours and viewers alike to assume he is in prison.[2] Various excuses are made, such as "He's working on the motorway inCarlisle", but this changed throughout the series.
Queenie shared her flat with four men – her shady brother-in-law Jack, and her sons: labourer Raymond, van driver Bunny, and the unemployed Douglas.
The family'sarchenemy, Mrs Petty, lives on a ground floor flat and runs acake shop in a row of shops at the bottom of the flats. Mrs Petty's main friend is Mrs Blakely who also dislikes the Shepherds. Although Mrs Petty is seen to live in a ground floor flat—and this is made perfectly obvious throughout the series—on more than one occasion she claims to live next door to the Shepherds, who quite clearly live several floors up.
Produced byYorkshire Television, the scripts were written byKeith Waterhouse (author ofBilly Liar) andWillis Hall.[3] The remaining four episodes of series one were recorded in black and white due to the ITVcolour strike.
Although the location was unspecified on screen, parts of the series were filmed inQuarry Hill,Leeds. The council flats, where it was filmed have since been demolished.[2] They were notable as the first council flats of their kind, built inart deco style in the 1930s.
Series 1
Note: episodes three to six of series 1 were shown in black-and-white due to the ITVColour Strike.
Series 2
Series 3
According to the BFI, "Dors proved so popular as the brassy Queenie that after the third and final series, she and Caunter essentially reprised their characters under different names for the rugby league sitcom All Our Saturdays (ITV, 1973)."[2]
All three series ofQueenie's Castle were released (separately) by Simply Media in May 2009. Network has released a three-disc box set of the complete series in August 2009.
| DVD | Year(s) | Release date |
|---|---|---|
| The Complete Series 1 | 1970 | 18 May 2009 |
| The Complete Series 2 | 1971 | 18 May 2009 |
| The Complete Series 3 | 1972 | 18 May 2009 |
| The Complete Series 1 to 3 Box Set | 1970- 1972 | 10 Aug 2009 |