Season 3 • Episode 10
LatestThe women all prepare to leave Singapore to go back home, agreeing to have a reunion at Raffles in 1950, exactly five years after they separate. Joss dies in hospital. Bea agrees to stay on in Singapore and help Stephen run the centre. Sister Ulrica goes to visit Yamauchi, who tells her he knows he will be hanged. Maggie agrees to go and stay with Dorothy in London. Everyone reminisces about absent friends: Joss, Rose, Blanche and all the others who died, and then say their goodbyes as they all go their separate ways. Marion realises the experience is finally over as she sails for home.
Based on real-life experiences, Tenko remains one of the most fondly remembered and acclaimed BBC dramas of the early 1980s. It follows a group of women, formerly comfortably well-off ex-pats living in Singapore, as they are captured by the Japanese during World War II.
Writing
Women written as people, not saints or victims. Revolutionary for 1981.
Acting
Stephanie Cole's matriarch devolves magnificently.
Production
BBC built authentic camp in Dorset. The mud is real.
Creator
Lavinia Warner
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Creator Lavinia Warner interviewed real female POWs; many refused to speak to male historians for decades. The show finally cracked their silence.
The Japanese government formally complained about Series 1. The BBC sent a fruit basket and aired Series 2 anyway.
AU
GB
