Prisoners' Wives

Prisoners' Wives is a BBC drama series, created and written by Julie Gearey and starring Polly Walker, Pippa Haywood, Emma Rigby, Natalie Gavin, Sally Carman and Karla Crome, with supporting cast including Iain Glen, Adam Gillen, Jonas Armstrong, Reuben Johnson, Enzo Cilenti and Owen Roe. The series centres on four very different women, each struggling to cope with a significant man in her life serving time in prison.^[1][2][3] The series is set in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Series one was six episodes long, and premiered on Tuesday 31 January 2012. Series two was a shorter run of four episodes, and began on Thursday 14 March 2013 on BBC One.^[4][5]

Prisoners' Wives
Genre	Drama
Created by	Julie Gearey
Written by	Julie Gearey James Graham Chloe Moss
Starring	Polly Walker Pippa Haywood Sally Carman Karla Crome Emma Rigby Natalie Gavin
Composer	Daniel Pemberton
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producers	Roanna Benn Rebecca de Souza Julie Gearey
Producer	Anna Ferguson
Production locations	Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	Tiger Aspect Productions
Original release
Network	BBC One
Release	31 January 2012 (2012-01-31) – 4 April 2013 (2013-04-04)

Main cast

Series 1

• Emma Rigby as Gemma Roscoe
• Polly Walker as Francesca Miller
• Pippa Haywood as Harriet Allison
• Natalie Gavin as Lou Bell

Series 2

• Polly Walker as Francesca Miller
• Pippa Haywood as Harriet Allison
• Sally Carman as Kim Haines
• Karla Crome as Aisling O'Connor

Supporting cast

Series 1

• Jonas Armstrong as Steve Roscoe
• Iain Glen as Paul Miller
• Adam Gillen as Gavin Allison
• Reuben Johnson as Sean Lowe
• Andrew Tiernan as DS David Hunter
• David Bradley as Frank
• Harry McEntire as Matt Miller
• Phoebe Dynevor as Lauren Miller
• Adrian Rawlins as Ian, the Prison Chaplain

Series 2

• Iain Glen as Paul Miller
• Adam Gillen as Gavin Allison
• Enzo Cilenti as Mick Haines
• Owen Roe as Brendan O'Connor
• Nicola Walker as DCI Jo Fontaine
• David Bradley as Frank
• Harry McEntire as Matt Miller
• Phoebe Dynevor as Lauren Miller
• Anne Reid as Margaret
• Adrian Rawlins as Ian, the Prison Chaplain

Episodes

Series 1

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	UK viewers (millions)[6]
1	"Episode 1"	Damon Thomas	Julie Gearey	31 January 2012 (2012-01-31)	5.62
2	"Episode 2"	Damon Thomas	Julie Gearey	7 February 2012 (2012-02-07)	5.96
3	"Episode 3"	Damon Thomas	James Graham	14 February 2012 (2012-02-14)	5.18
4	"Episode 4"	Harry Bradbeer	Chloe Moss	21 February 2012 (2012-02-21)	4.69
5	"Episode 5"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	28 February 2012 (2012-02-28)	4.98
6	"Episode 6"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	6 March 2012 (2012-03-06)	5.16

Series 2

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	UK viewers (millions)[6]
7	"Episode 1"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	14 March 2013 (2013-03-14)	4.94
8	"Episode 2"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	21 March 2013 (2013-03-21)	4.96
9	"Episode 3"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	28 March 2013 (2013-03-28)	4.74
10	"Episode 4"	Harry Bradbeer	Julie Gearey	4 April 2013 (2013-04-04)	4.79

Production

Prisoners’ Wives is executive produced for Tiger Aspect by Roanna Benn, Rebecca de Souza and Greg Brenman (Tiger's Head of Drama) and for the BBC by Christopher Aird. Damon Thomas and Harry Bradbeer direct with Anna Ferguson as producer and Abi Bach as co-producer. The series was commissioned for BBC One by Ben Stephenson and Danny Cohen for airing in early 2012.

Ratings

The first series attracted an average consolidated audience of 5.26 million. The average consolidated audience for the second series was 4.86 million.