Accept no substitute: there's only one WIDOWS.
A security van heist goes disasterously wrong, leaving the three robbers dead. The ringleader was known criminal Harry Rawlins so his widow Dolly is harrassed by the vengeful Inspector Resnick
and by the Fisher brothers who were her husband's rivals.
Dolly finds her husband's ledgers and decides that she will attempt the robbery again with the two other gang members' widows: headstrong Linda and insecure Shirley. Dolly - and Resnick - realise there was a fourth gang member
who obviously escaped. Dolly recruits Linda's friend Bella, a
cool-headed stripper to complete her gang.
Debut writer Lynda La Plante's idea was nurtured by producer Linda Agran and Verity Lambert of Euston Pictures and WIDOWS has the trademark gritty London realness of Euston's finest work.
Shelf or charity shop? You 'avin' a larf? There is a reason why WIDOWS attracted audiences of 18 million viewers and it still grips like a vice thanks to Ian Toynton's spare direction, La Plante's memorable characters and the terse performances from actors of the calibre of David Calder, Kate Williams and Maurice O'Connell among others. Fiona Hendley and Maureen O'Farrell's performances as Shirley and Linda are over-shadowed by Eva Mottley's gimlet-eyed Bella and Ann Mitchell as Dolly Rawlins - one of the great television performances of the 1980s. Watching WIDOWS now is bittersweet as in 1985, Mottley pulled out of the filming of the WIDOWS sequel citing racial and sexual abuse from the production team and was later found dead of an overdose aged only 31, a tragic waste of a real talent.
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