She adapted one of her short stories "The Night of the Stag" for The Frighteners, an anthology series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT).
[3][6] Helen: A Woman of Today was another LWT drama recounting the side of a wronged wife[2] for which Newman wrote two episodes.
Having been commissioned by Tony Wharmby for both projects, Newman sent him a copy of A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1969) as a present; the book was by then out of print.
[7] Broadcast in early 1976, Bouquet of Barbed Wire (losing the indefinite article) as a seven-part serial, it attracted an audience of 20 million viewers.
[3][4][1] In a 2010 interview, Newman recalled her work on the adaptation: "I never set out to shock, just to tell a story about an imaginary family, but I imagine most people would still disapprove of hitting your pregnant wife and having sex with her mother.