Shelagh Delaney

Writing

Shelagh Delaney

Born 1938-11-25 · Salford, Lancashire, England

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

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Dance with a Stranger poster
6.1

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

1985

A Taste of Honey poster
7.1

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

1961

Red, White, and Zero poster
5.0

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

1968

National Theatre Live: A Taste of Honey poster
NR

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

2014

The White Bus poster
6.0

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

The White Bus

1967

The Railway Station Man poster
6.1

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

1992

Charlie Bubbles poster
6.6

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

1968

Three Days in August poster
7.0

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.

Three Days in August

1992

No artwork available
NR

Feature-length 1984 adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's classic play.

A Taste of Honey

1984

Find Me First poster
NR

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

1981