Tenko poster

Tenko

Created by Lavinia Warner

1981–1984

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.

First aired
22 Oct 1981
Episode length
52 min
Country
Australia
Language
English
Writers
Anne Valery, Jill Hyem, Paul Wheeler
Music
James Harpham
Editors
Clare Douglas, Derek Orman, Kate Evans
Elsewhere
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  • Drama
  • War & Politics

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Seasons · 30 episodes

  • Series 1

    Season 1 · 1981

    The first season, set in 1941-42, charts the drama from the women being captured and sent to live in squalor and deprivation in a Japanese POW camp.

  • Series 2

    Season 2 · 1982

    Season 2, set in 1942-43, began with the women on a long march to a new camp, where things seem much more luxurious at first, but they find they have troubles settling into the strange regime of their new home.

  • Series 3

    Season 3 · 1984

    The final season took up two years after the previous one, as the war drew to a close and the women were returned to their normal lives. Well, as normal as they could be after their imprisonment.

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