Shelley (TV series)
Shelley is a British sitcom made by Thames Television and originally broadcast on ITV from 12 July 1979 to 12 January 1984 and from 11 October 1988 to 1 September 1992. It stars Hywel Bennett as Dr James Shelley, 28 years old at the outset although 35 by the sixth series only four years later, and a sardonic, perpetually unemployed anti-establishment 'freelance layabout' with a doctoral degree. In the original run, Belinda Sinclair played Shelley's girlfriend Fran, and Josephine Tewson appeared regularly as his landlady, Edna Hawkins. The series was created by Peter Tilbury who also wrote the first three series. The scripts for subsequent episodes were by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, Colin Bostock-Smith, David Frith, Bernard McKenna and Barry Pilton. All 71 episodes were produced and directed by Anthony Parker.
Series seven was titled on screen The Return of Shelley, and was broadcast in 1988. This time around, Shelley is separated from Fran, and lives on his own, doing his best to avoid obtaining gainful employment. The series begins with Shelley returning to the UK from Kuwait after teaching English for several years, only to find that his calls to his old friends are now screened by answering machines and that yuppieness has taken root in his old neighbourhood. The final three series returned to the on-screen title of Shelley.
In the final series, Shelley is a lodger with Ted Bishop. Ted's house is the only one left in his street, the other residences having been demolished to make way for a leisure centre. Shelley moves in as lodger to help Ted with his fight against the developers who want to demolish the house Ted has lived in his whole life.
Characters
; James Shelley; Frances Shelley
; Edna Hawkins
; Paul England
; Mrs Radcliffe
; Desmond
; Isobel Shelley
Minor characters
; Cyril; Ramond "Ned" Kelly
List of episodes
Series 1 (1979–80)
The ITV technicians' strike of 1979 delayed transmission of the last three episodes of series one. Because of the delay, ITV instead transmitted the three episodes eight months later, immediately before series two.Series 2 (1980)
For the three weeks leading up to the premiere of series two, ITV transmitted the three episodes from series one whose release had been delayed by the technician strike.Series 7 (1988)
For this series only, it was titled The Return of Shelley.Video releases
Network Distributing released the first six series on Region 2 DVD-Video between 2007 and 2012. Although a technician strike in 1979 delayed the transmission of three episodes of series one by several months, the Complete Series 1 DVD set contains all seven of the series one episodes, including the three that were delayed. Similarly, the Complete Series 2 set contains only the six episodes that belong to series two—even though ITV transmitted the delayed episodes directly before the series two episodes.On 20 November 2017, Network released a six-disc set comprising the first six series, and a second DVD set comprising series 7–10.
| Title | Release date |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 1 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 2 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 3 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 4 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 5 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 6 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 1 to 6 | |
| Shelley: The Complete Series 7 to 10 |