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Who is Shena Jackson, I hear you ask? Well, if you were a regular viewer of The Bill in the early 1990s and have an excellent memory of incidental guest characters over three decades on; you will remember that she was a two-episode wonder guest character in The Bill way back in November 1990, and was played by a 40 year old Linda Bassett, who looked stunning in a denim skirt back then!
Watching old episodes of The Bill which were made during the final couple of years of Thames' franchise period, one tends to come across so many fascinating guest stars, usually ones who are not of the celebrity sort but ones that crop up as guest parts in The Bill and also Casualty, Holby City, Doctors, Heartbeat and other series - the ones who are just about recognisable, and probably feature in many a theatre programme. What is nice about The Bill was that we have a nice transposition where in most series, police characters would be guest roles, but here they are regulars and the public are the guests. Last year for example, I researched all five of Kate Lock Gaminara's characters that she had played from 1989 to around 1997 - and they all looked like five different women, with around a two year gap between each character's appearance! - her 1997 character looked quite like the Spitting Image of Diana, Princess of Wales! I noticed that she also did supporting roles for Hale and Pace.
Linda Bassett (no relation to the Jelly Babies or Allsorts people) is also one of them - she seemed to be more prominent in the theatre than on the TV screen in recent years, but I can see that as recently as 2022 she has made a new TV appearance. On YouTube I was watching the two episodes of The Bill from 1990 - episodes 91 and 92 that year (episodes 278 and 279 overall) - transmitted on Tuesday 13th November and Thursday 15th November 1990 respectively. "Plato for Policemen" and "Testimony", both were written by Chris Hodson and directed by Robin Mukherjee. Here we find DS Ted Roach visits a familiar thief (Terry Jackson) who is supposed to be going straight. Terry and his wife Shena (with one E) both have "stereotype" written all over them as soon as she opens her front door to Sun Hill's finest. Bassett, was around 40 at the time and looked even younger back then, was cast as Shena Jackson, a mother of two girls where we hear a sample of Betty Boo's Where Are You Baby? coming out of the older unseen teenager's bedroom at the part where Boo sings "I've lost track of all time, 'cause you're always on my mind" - this was 1990, remember. Future Emmerdale actress Adele Silva who was uncredited, but mentioned on the IMDB plays Claire Jackson, and as she was born in 1980, I believe that she was the younger daughter seen during the "putting the washing on the line" scene. Shena's denim skirt was supposed to be incidental to what was happening in the episode, but I was more interested in that rather than in the general storyline!
DS Roach pulls in Terry Jackson as he is wanted for burglary and rape; he has a lot of scenes with Shena in the episode such as when she is hanging the washing out in the back garden with her identical younger daughter there. A couple of scenes later, we see her from very unusual camera angles (almost a la Freddie Mercury in I Want to Break Free - I bet that the Thames cameramen enjoyed filming that!), Shena bending over to pick up the used mugs from the coffee table before eventually retiring in an armchair as Roach looks on. In her aqua blue top and sexy denim skirt (or "changers" as I often call them), with only one back pocket on the right at the back (presumably), and her body language in her living room, she certainly makes an impression on me when I watch this, and I don't even remember it at the time! Some observations from looking at archive episodes, I did notice that Mrs Mann played by Sara Clee in series 7 episode 52 in Minimum Force which was nearly a year later on Thursday 27th June 1991 also seems to wear a similar denim skirt which also has one back pocket - I believe that it was the very same skirt that was worn by both actresses who were presumably the same clothes size, I assume! Anyway, Shena ends up at Sun Hill, sitting down near reception after her husband and getting custody before going home again. A great way of reusing costumes if they did exist, and having access to multiple series at once, it's great to see these little things that were presumably supposed to be incidental to the viewer!
It was a great run of the mill episode that was enjoyed in more ways than one 30 years after it was made. I tried to get Linda Bassett's autograph - no details of agents are online, and as she seemed to be in residence at one of the theatres down south, I tried to write care of that theatre but it proved fruitless. It is sobering to think that she is the other side of 70 now compared to over 30 years ago, but time goes on and people change. I ended both episodes wanting to see more of Shena Jackson, and that feels good when watching guest characters in regular series such as The Bill...
Watching old episodes of The Bill which were made during the final couple of years of Thames' franchise period, one tends to come across so many fascinating guest stars, usually ones who are not of the celebrity sort but ones that crop up as guest parts in The Bill and also Casualty, Holby City, Doctors, Heartbeat and other series - the ones who are just about recognisable, and probably feature in many a theatre programme. What is nice about The Bill was that we have a nice transposition where in most series, police characters would be guest roles, but here they are regulars and the public are the guests. Last year for example, I researched all five of Kate Lock Gaminara's characters that she had played from 1989 to around 1997 - and they all looked like five different women, with around a two year gap between each character's appearance! - her 1997 character looked quite like the Spitting Image of Diana, Princess of Wales! I noticed that she also did supporting roles for Hale and Pace.
Linda Bassett (no relation to the Jelly Babies or Allsorts people) is also one of them - she seemed to be more prominent in the theatre than on the TV screen in recent years, but I can see that as recently as 2022 she has made a new TV appearance. On YouTube I was watching the two episodes of The Bill from 1990 - episodes 91 and 92 that year (episodes 278 and 279 overall) - transmitted on Tuesday 13th November and Thursday 15th November 1990 respectively. "Plato for Policemen" and "Testimony", both were written by Chris Hodson and directed by Robin Mukherjee. Here we find DS Ted Roach visits a familiar thief (Terry Jackson) who is supposed to be going straight. Terry and his wife Shena (with one E) both have "stereotype" written all over them as soon as she opens her front door to Sun Hill's finest. Bassett, was around 40 at the time and looked even younger back then, was cast as Shena Jackson, a mother of two girls where we hear a sample of Betty Boo's Where Are You Baby? coming out of the older unseen teenager's bedroom at the part where Boo sings "I've lost track of all time, 'cause you're always on my mind" - this was 1990, remember. Future Emmerdale actress Adele Silva who was uncredited, but mentioned on the IMDB plays Claire Jackson, and as she was born in 1980, I believe that she was the younger daughter seen during the "putting the washing on the line" scene. Shena's denim skirt was supposed to be incidental to what was happening in the episode, but I was more interested in that rather than in the general storyline!
DS Roach pulls in Terry Jackson as he is wanted for burglary and rape; he has a lot of scenes with Shena in the episode such as when she is hanging the washing out in the back garden with her identical younger daughter there. A couple of scenes later, we see her from very unusual camera angles (almost a la Freddie Mercury in I Want to Break Free - I bet that the Thames cameramen enjoyed filming that!), Shena bending over to pick up the used mugs from the coffee table before eventually retiring in an armchair as Roach looks on. In her aqua blue top and sexy denim skirt (or "changers" as I often call them), with only one back pocket on the right at the back (presumably), and her body language in her living room, she certainly makes an impression on me when I watch this, and I don't even remember it at the time! Some observations from looking at archive episodes, I did notice that Mrs Mann played by Sara Clee in series 7 episode 52 in Minimum Force which was nearly a year later on Thursday 27th June 1991 also seems to wear a similar denim skirt which also has one back pocket - I believe that it was the very same skirt that was worn by both actresses who were presumably the same clothes size, I assume! Anyway, Shena ends up at Sun Hill, sitting down near reception after her husband and getting custody before going home again. A great way of reusing costumes if they did exist, and having access to multiple series at once, it's great to see these little things that were presumably supposed to be incidental to the viewer!
It was a great run of the mill episode that was enjoyed in more ways than one 30 years after it was made. I tried to get Linda Bassett's autograph - no details of agents are online, and as she seemed to be in residence at one of the theatres down south, I tried to write care of that theatre but it proved fruitless. It is sobering to think that she is the other side of 70 now compared to over 30 years ago, but time goes on and people change. I ended both episodes wanting to see more of Shena Jackson, and that feels good when watching guest characters in regular series such as The Bill...
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