Cuckoo Sister, The

1 9 8 6 (UK)
4 x 30 minute episodes

The Setons – Margaret (Victoria Fairbrother) and Anthony (Michael Harbour) and their only child, 11-year-old daughter Kate (Joanna Joseph) – are a well-off middle-class family whose world is shattered when a scruffy 13-year-old girl named Rosie (Shelley Measures) turns up at the door of their Hampstead home with a poorly-written letter claiming that she is Kate’s long-lost sister, Emma, who was stolen as a baby from her pram outside a dress shop.

With her spiky hair and skimpy pink skirt, Rosie doesn’t look or dress like someone from Kate’s family.

She has been brought up on a street with pink nylons, silver bracelets and old clothes hanging out for sale, instead of lavender bushes and elderberry trees.

Is Rosie really Emma? That’s the mystery behind The Cuckoo Sister.

This BBC series was based on a novel by Vivien Alcock who died on 11 October 2003 in London.

Kate Seton
Joanna Joseph
Rosie
Shelley Measures
Margaret Seton
Victoria Fairbrother
Anthony Seton
Michael Harbour
Mrs Trapp
Toni Palmer
Elizabeth Wait
Jo Kendall
Uncle James
David Bacon
Bettine
Jelena Budimir
Harry Jenkin
Michael Egan