Francesca Gonshaw

Francesca Gonshaw (born 25 November 1959)[1] is an English former actress who appeared in a number of television, theatre and cinema productions in the 1980s. From 1984 to 1986, she appeared as Maria Recamier in the BBC's 'Allo 'Allo! television situation comedy series set in occupied France during World War II.

Francesca Gonshaw
Francesca Gonshaw in 2014
Born
Francesca Rebecca Gonshaw

(1959-11-25) 25 November 1959
Marylebone, London, England[1]
OccupationFormer actress
Years active1982–1990

Early life

Gonshaw's father came to England as a child with his parents as Russian White emigres fleeing from the Bolshevik Revolution.[2] Francesca Gonshaw was born in Marylebone, London in 1959,[1] and received her formal education at St Paul's Girls' School.[3] The family relocated from London to Marbella, Spain in 1976. At the age of 17 she returned to England to study for her A Levels in Cambridge.[4] She subsequently studied acting at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, and painting at the Byam Shaw School of Art,[5] and worked as a model.[6]

Acting career

Gonshaw began her television acting career in the early 1980s. In 1982 she appeared in a BBC television play entitled Shades.[7]

She appeared as the character Arsinoe in the 1983 BBC television classical Roman history drama series The Cleopatras.[8][9] That same year, she played a rape victim in Ian Richardson's The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983). From 1984 to 1985, she played the character Lisa Walters in the Central soap-opera Crossroads. From 1984 to 1986, she appeared as Maria Recamier in the BBC's 'Allo 'Allo! television situation comedy series set in occupied France during World War II.[10] She left the cast of 'Allo 'Allo after its third series to take up the role of Amanda Parker in the third series of the BBC television drama series Howards' Way in 1987.[5]

Gonshaw appeared in the historical/science fiction cinema film Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986),[11] and played the character of Senorita Rodriguez in the television film dramatization of the Barbara Cartland novel A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990).[12] She appeared as a supporting actor in the first series of the Anglo-American television drama She-Wolf of London (1990).[13]

Theatre

In 1982, Gonshaw played Kate in You Should See Us Now by Peter Tinniswood, at the Greenwich Theatre. the cast also included Simon Cadell, Christopher Cazenove and Pauline Yates.[14][15]

In the mid-1980s she joined the New Shakespeare Company's tour of thirteen countries in the Middle East, portraying Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream.[16] She was in a production of The Cat and the Canary in 1988. The Stage's Eric Harris saw her nearly trip over in the performance that he watched, writing "perhaps it was divine retribution for the daft was she was playing the young female lead - all clear eyes and simpers like a panto's principal girl."[17]

In 1990 she played Ophelia in Hamlet, at the Brixton Assembly Rooms, Pentameters in Hampstead, and the Shaw Theatre.[18] The title role was played by Stephen Haynes, who had been sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment in France for dealing in heroin, but then pardoned by President Mitterrand of France. Having promised to do something positive with his life if pardoned, Haynes decided that he would stage Hamlet. The production was helped by Trevor Nunn and Sir John Gielgud. Timothy West provided his voice to play the Ghost. Haynes had AIDS, and the proceeds of the performances were to benefit AIDS charities.[19] Helen Gould, reviewing the production in The Stage, said that Gonshaw as Ophelia was "a whining rag doll given to declamatory gestures."[20]

Performances in other media

In 1992, she appeared in the pop music video for the Peter Gabriel single release "Digging in the Dirt"[21][22]

Post-acting career

Gonshaw retired from acting in the early 1990s, and took up the post of Senior Vice-President of Creative Affairs with Miramax Books & Films.[23] In 2001 she was a casting agent for the film The Goose Creek Story.[24]

From 2009 she has been an artist, and was the curator of the 'She has a Space' gallery in London.[3] She exhibited at the 7–8 October 2009 Art for Youth event at the Mall Galleries.[25][26]

She resides in West London, and since 2011 has occasionally appeared at memorabilia collectors conventions with the former cast of the 1980s comedy series Allo Allo![27]

Filmography
Year Title Role Notes Ref.
1982 Shades Julie/Sue TV [24]
1982 The British Are Coming Maria Pilot episode for 'Allo 'Allo! [24]
1982 Gesualdo the Prince cast member TV [24]
1983 The Cleopatras Part 6 51 BC Arsinoe TV Mini-series [24]
1983 The Cleopatras Part 6 51 BC Arsinoe TV Mini-series [24]
1984 Hook, Line and Sinker Amanda TV [24]
1984–1987 'Allo 'Allo! Maria Recamier TV Series [24]
1986 Biggles Marie Movie [24]
1987 Blankety Blank Herself guest [28]
1987 Howard's Way Amanda Howard TV Series [24]
1988 The Hound of the Baskervilles Young Girl in Mire TV Movie. [lower-alpha 1] [24]
1990 A Ghost In Monte Carlo [12]

Notes
  1. BFI has date as 1988, some other sources say 1983

References
  1. "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
  2. "Francesca says 'allo allo,'" Reading Evening Post, 17 November 1986, Page 2. Retrieved 7 July 2019 from https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ Archived 8 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "Francesca Gonshaw". Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  4. "Francesca says 'allo allo,'". Reading Evening Post. 17 November 1986. p. 2.
  5. IMDb entry
  6. "Seventies teen mag My Guy gets one-off relaunch". London Evening Standard. London. 23 October 2006. Archived from the original on 6 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  7. Shades (1982) Archived 5 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine bfi.org. Retrieved 6 July 2019
  8. The Cleopatras Part 6 51 BC (1983) Archived 5 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine bfi.org. Retrieved 6 July 2019
  9. The Cleopatras Part 8 35 BC (1983) Archived 27 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine bfi.org. Retrieved 6 July 2019
  10. Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin & Topping, Keith (1996) The Guinness Book of Classic British TV, 2nd edition, Guinness World Records Limited, ISBN 978-0851126289, p. 122
  11. British Film Institute catalogue entry for the career of Francesca Gonshaw. http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba213bd81 Archived 21 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine
  12. "A Ghost In Monte Carlo (1990)". bbfc.co.uk. British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
  13. Entry for 'She-Wolf of London' in IMDb. http://www.imbd.com/title/tt0098909/%5B%5D
  14. You Should See Us Now by Peter Tinniswood Archived 5 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine www.chaseside.org.uk Retrieved 5 July 2019
  15. Coveney, Michael (2 February 1983). "You Should See Us Now/Greenwich". Financial Times. Page 11. Retrieved 5 July 2019.CS1 maint: location (link)
  16. Batrouni, Vanessa (24 October 1985). "An Elizabethan Dream That Travelled Well". The Jerusalem Star. p. 7 – via archive.org. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  17. Harris, Eric (10 March 1988). "Stevenage: The Cat and the Canary". The Stage. London. p. 25.
  18. Stanley Wells (28 November 2002). Shakespeare Survey. Cambridge University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-521-52384-4.
  19. "Good cause – Briefing". The Times. London. 19 July 1990. p. 21.
  20. Gould, Helen (9 August 1990). "Shaw Theatre: Hamlet". The Stage. London. p. 11.
  21. Bowman, Durrell (2 September 2016). Experiencing Peter Gabriel: A Listener's Companion. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-4422-5200-4.
  22. "Winners – 35th Annual GRAMMY Awards (1992)". grammy.com. Recording Academy. Archived from the original on 30 June 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
  23. Horn, John (17 July 1994). "Bookstores Nationwide Are Selling Screenplays". The State. Columbia SC). p. 21 – via NewsBank. Retrieved 12 July 2019. "Film has become the major art form, and everyone's more aware of how the process works," says Francesca Gonshaw, vice president of acquisitions for the newly launched Miramax Books, a division of the art film distributor.
  24. "Francesca Gonshaw". bfi.org.uk/. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 5 July 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  25. "Art for Youth and UK Youth". citywealthmag.com. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  26. "Raphael Pepper – Biography". raphaelpepper.com. Archived from the original on 25 July 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2019. 'Christmas Wish' curated by Francesca Gonshaw – She has a Space, London
  27. "Latest Guest Announcement – Francesca Gonshaw". showmasters.com. 30 November 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  28. "Television listings". Aberdeen Evening Express. 6 March 1987. p. 2.
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