Working on radio scripts for the BBC in the 1960s, Jill Hyem was told: “Never write more than two women in a scene. They catch each other’s tone.” Two decades later she was avenged when she became the cowriter of Tenko — the BBC drama series based on the experience of female prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War. It ran for three series and drew audiences of up to 16.75 million.
Its success in the early 1980s was to the surprise of BBC executives, Hyem recalled: “They really couldn’t imagine that a group of skinny women, without make-up and covered in boils could top the charts. They were completely taken aback by it.”
Along with her cowriter, Anne Valery (obituary, May 13,