Tenko and Doc Martin actress Stephanie Cole dies aged 84

Stephanie Cole, the Solihul‑born actress best known for portraying Dr Beatrice Mason in the BBC wartime drama Tenko, has died at the age of 84. Cole trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and enjoyed a lengthy career that spanned television, vigor and film. Her breakout role came as the camp doctor in Tenko, a series that chronicled the lives of British women in Singapore after the Japanese invasion and their subsequent confinement in a Japanese prisoner‑of‑war camp. In the show she struggled to safeguard the health of her fellow internees, Ann Bell and Claire Oberman. During the same period she took on the moody Mrs Delphine Featherstone, nicknamed “The Black Widow,” opposite Ronnie Barker in the sitcom Open All Hours. Cole later earned the award for best TV drama actress for her performance as the sharp‑tongued photojournalist Diana Trent in Waiting For God. She cited her earlier turn as Muriel in Alan Bennett’s monologue Soldiering On—performed alongside Maggie Smith and Julie Walters—as one of her proudest moments. According to Cole, her stage highlight was a West End production of A Passionate Woman.