Written by Melvyn Bragg and set in the Lake District, A Time to Dance had 50-something retired bank manager Andrew Powell (Ronald Pickup) falling for Bernadette Kennedy (Irish actress Dervla Kirwan in her TV debut), a boozy 18-year-old from a local council estate.
Separated by age, social standing and the events which have framed their personalities, Andrew and Berndette embark on an explosive and explicit affair that causes him grief at home, where his invalid wife, Angela (Rosemary McHale), is dying of cancer, and threatens to destroy them both.
Dervla Kirwan said later that her decision to film an open-air sex scene with a man twice her age in A Time to Dance was the worst she’d made in her life.
Andrew Powell
Ronald Pickup Bernadette Kennedy
Dervla Kirwan Christopher Pearson
Geoffrey Beevers Mrs Kennedy
Anne Raitt Angela Powell
Rosemary McHale Theresa Kennedy
Jacqueline Leonard David Kennedy
David MacCreedy Joe Kennedy
Joseph Crilly Frank Carruthers
Roger Walker
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