Lynda Bellingham Stars in Kay Mellor's A PASSIONATE WOMAN at Sheffield, Now thru Sept 21

Lynda Bellingham will star in Kay Mellor's "slightly re-written" version of her play A Passionate Woman for Sheffield Theatres. The show runs tonight, September 10-21, 2013, before heading out on a national tour.

Bellingham will reunite with "All Creatures Great And Small" co-star Christopher Timothy, as well as Peter McMillan. Mellor will direct. Mellor also adapted A Passionate Woman as an original six-part drama for the BBC in 2010, now available on DVD.

The play is set in Leeds between the the 1950s and 1980s. Betty is a young wife and mother whose life is changed forever after she falls hopelessly and dangerously in love with her charismatic Polish neighbour, Alex Crazenovski, better known as "Craze". Against her principles, she soon abandons herself to a world of untapped thrills and passion, a world that has been so desperately missing from her own conventional and claustrophobic marriage. But little does Betty Realise that her compulsive passion and its consequences will create ripples that reach far into her later life, imploding 30 years later on her beloved son's wedding.

Bellingham has appeared onstage in Trafalgar Studios' Vincent River in 2007, and in the West End and UK touring productions of Calendar Girls, from 2008 to 2012. Her big and little screen acting credits include ITV's General Hospital, Confessions of a Driving Instructor, Sweeney!, All Creatures Great and Small, Second Thoughts, Faith in the Future, Doctor Who's The Trial of a Time Lord, The Romanovs: A Crowned Family, At Home with the Braithwaites, The Bill and Bonkers.