Within These Walls

Within These Walls is a British television drama programme made by London Weekend Television for ITV and shown between 1974 and 1978. It portrayed life in HMP Stone Park, a fictional women's prison. Unlike later women-in-prison TV series, Bad Girls (ITV, 1999–2006), and Australian series, Prisoner (aka Prisoner: Cell Block H, Grundy Organisation, original run: 1979–1986), and Wentworth (2013–2021), Within These Walls tended to centre its story-lines around the prison staff rather than the inmates.

The lead character was played by British film actor Googie Withers who played the well-groomed, genteel governor Faye Boswell and episodes revolved around her attempts to liberalise the prison regime while managing her personal life at home. Another prominent character was her Chief Officer, Mrs. Armitage (Mona Bruce). Googie Withers left after three series; in Series Four her character was replaced as governor by Helen Forrester (Katharine Blake), who in turn left to be replaced in the final Series Five by Susan Marshall (Sarah Lawson).

Creator and screenwriter of the programme, David Butler, appeared in some episodes as prison chaplain, Rev. Henry Prentice.

DVD release
As of November 2011, Network have released all five series on DVD in the UK, with the exception of "Nowhere for the Kids", an episode from Series Two which appears to be missing from the archives.

Screening
The programme was broadcast around 9:00 p.m. (although exact times varied around the ITV regions), but prisoners were locked in their cells 30 minutes before 9:00pm.

Cast

 * Googie Withers as Prison Governor - Faye Boswell
 * Katharine Blake as Prison Governor - Helen Forrester
 * Sarah Lawson as Prison Governor - Sarah Marshall
 * Mona Bruce as Chief Officer Mrs. Armitage
 * Jerome Willis as Prison Deputy Governor Charles Radley
 * Denys Hawthorne as Dr. Peter Mayes
 * Beth Harris as Miss Clarke
 * Elaine Wells as Principal Prison Officer Spencer
 * Sonia Graham as Assistant Governor Martha Parrish
 * Miranda Forbes as Prison Officer Parsons
 * Janet Lees Price as Assistant Governor Janet Harker

Successful alumnae from the series included Helen Worth, later widely known for her role of Gail Platt on Coronation Street. Worth appeared in an episode of season 1 alongside Cheryl Murray. The two would be reunited as flatmates in Coronation Street in 1977, when Murray joined the cast as Suzie Birchall. Shirley Cheriton and Anna Wing both appeared in the season 2 episode "Skivers", long before becoming original cast members of EastEnders together.

The Lost Episode
Episode three from series 2, "Nowhere for the Kids", no longer exists in any format, but its script is included in PDF format on Series Two, Disc One. The script is located in the root directory of the DVD and is called "Within These Walls-N#149129.pdf" The script lists St. John's Waterloo church as the rehearsal hall for read-through for the shows.

Despite indications that this episode is unofficially available on the video-sharing website YouTube, this is not the case. 'The Slap' (series 2 episode 4) is incorrectly labelled ‘Nowhere For The Kids' on YouTube.