
Shelagh Delaney
Writing
Biography
Shelagh Delaney, FRSL was an English dramatist and screenwriter, best known for her debut work, A Taste of Honey.
Known For

Series of single made-for-television dramas.
Screen Two

Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.
Dance with a Stranger

While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
A Taste of Honey

Charlie Bubbles, a writer, up from the working class of Manchester, England, who, in the course of becoming prematurely rich and famous, has mislaid a writer's basic tool – the capacity to feel and to respond. Now he must visit his estranged wife and son, whom he has set up on a farm outside his native city. His journey accidentally becomes an attempt to reestablish his connections with life, people, and his own history.
Charlie Bubbles

Composed of three shorts – Ride of the Valkyrie, The White Bus, and Red and Blue – from three of Britain’s most-celebrated directors - Lindsay Anderson, Peter Brook, and Tony Richardson. Comic legend Zero Mostel stars as an opera singer (in full costume) navigating the London transport network as he attempts to reach Covent Garden in 'Ride of the Valkyrie'. Scripted by Shelagh Delaney, 'The White Bus' blends realism, drama, and poetry as a despondent young woman travels home to the North of England. And Vanessa Redgrave stars in Tony Richardson’s romantic reverie and musical featurette 'Red and Blue'. Produced in 1967, but ultimately shelved.
Red, White, and Zero

Northern Irishwoman Helen Cuffe (Julie Christie) is overwhelmed with sadness when her husband is killed by the Irish Republican Army. She and her teen son, Jack (Frank MacCusker), then move to a tiny town and start life anew. There, Helen meets a mysterious American man named Roger Hawthorne (Donald Sutherland), who is in the area to refurbish an old train station. A romance slowly blossoms between Roger and Helen, but Jack then gets involved with a violent political group, and tragedy looms.
The Railway Station Man

A despondent young woman travels home to the North of England.
The White Bus

When her mother Helen runs off with a car salesman, feisty teenager Jo takes up with Jimmie, a sailor who promises to marry her, before he heads for the seas. Art student Geof moves in and assumes the role of a surrogate parent until, misguidedly, he sends for Helen and their unconventional setup unravels.
National Theatre Live: A Taste of Honey

For Jack, the dream was to live in a castle with grounds big enough to ride a horse for two hours. For Lu, it was the dream of love. Shelagh Delaney's drama Charts 10 years of a marriage from wedding night to the present day
The House That Jack Built

Serial in six parts charting 10 years of a marriage from wedding night to the present time. Eight Years Ago - Winter Lu's dream is that Jack should be happy. Their hopes are hatched in a little two up, two down house. Starred Duggie Brown as Jack and Sharon Duce as Lu.
The House That Jack Built

Short documentary about Shelagh Delaney and her hometown Salford.
Shelagh Delaney's Salford

A TV play from Taste of Honey writer Shelagh Delaney. A chance encounter late one night in central Manchester reunites two estranged sisters-but for how long?
Find Me First

Documentary about the anti-nuclear demonstration staged in Trafalgar Square on 17 September 1961.
A Sunday in September

Follows the creation of Lindsay Anderson's The White Bus (1968), from pre-production to the shoot and in post.
About "The White Bus"

Six years after Michail Gorbachev set the Soviet Union on the path to democracy and economic reform, the nation is torn apart by a three day coup that changes the future of the Soviet Union forever.