Barbara Ewing is a UK-based actress, playwright and novelist. Born in New Zealand, she graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a BA in English and Maori before coming to Britain in 1965 to train as an actress at RADA in London. She made her film debut in the horror film Torture Garden for Amicus Productions, followed by Dracula Has Risen from the Grave with Christopher Lee for Hammer Films. Both movies were directed by Freddie Francis. The television role for which she is best remembered is that of Bradley Hardacre's mistress Agnes Fairchild in the Granada Television comedy series Brass, alongside Timothy West. In 1986, she played Treen Dudgeon in the short-lived BBC series Comrade Dad, alongside George Cole and Doris Hare. Her 1989 one-woman show, Alexandra Kollontai, about the only woman in Lenin's cabinet in 1917 was a great hit in London, and at the Edinburgh and Sydney Festivals. More recent TV appearances have included episodes of Casualty, Doctors and Holby City on the BBC, and The Bill and Peak Practice on ITV, as well as appearances in various adaptations of Ruth Rendell mysteries. 

1944 in Greater London