Housewife, 49

Plot

The Mass-Observation project was set up in 1937 by Charles Madge, a poet and journalist and Tom Harrison, an anthropologist to 'record the voice of ordinary people'. They recruited volunteer 'observers' to report to them and in 1939 invited people to send them an account of their lives. Nella Last was one of 500 people who took up this offer. Her diaries sent weekly are headed "Housewife, 49", her age when she first began the correspondence. Her diaries to Mass-Observation, often written in pencil, provide the narrative of the play as it unfolds her life. Edited versions of her diary have been published: Nella Last's War edited by Richard Broad and Suzy Fleming appeared first in 1981 and has been more recently re-published by Profile Books in 2007. Housewife, 49 is based on this book which covers the years 1939 to 1945. Nella Last's Peace, which appeared in 2009, includes diary entries from her immediate post-war years. A third volume, Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49, which includes material not published in Nella Last's War, was published in 2010.

In some scenes, the staff of Mass-Observation are seen reacting to, and sometimes visibly moved by, her letters. During the course of the programme, Last moves from being an introverted, isolated, and depressed individual in a difficult marriage, to become an outgoing character who, through her voluntary work during wartime, becomes a backbone of the local community. At the end of the programme it is explained that Nella continued to write to Mass-Observation until her death in 1968. The original diary, together with hundreds of other diaries and Mass-Observation's other papers, are now held within the Mass-Observation Archive, housed by the University of Sussex at The Keep, Brighton.

It also documents the lead character's changing relationships with those around her; standing up to her domineering husband (David Threlfall), developing a close but sometimes strained friendship with Mrs Waite (Stephanie Cole) the head of the Local Women's Voluntary Service, and her changing relationships with her eldest son Arthur (Ben Crompton), and her younger son Cliff (Christopher Harper) who is changed by his experiences of combat. It is also implied that Cliff, who in real life became a sculptor in Australia, was gay; although Nella either does not realise or refuses to acknowledge it.

Stage production

In September 2013, Victoria Wood chose the small Old Laundry theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere as the venue for the premiere of the stage version of Housewife 49.

Awards

The film won two British Academy Television Awards in 2007: "Best Single Drama", and "Best Actress" for Victoria Wood for her portrayal of Nella Last.

DVD release

Housewife, 49 was released on DVD in the US on 11 March 2008.