Returning to musical cinema, she starred as Ruth in "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera of the same name, and while filming it in London sang on a recording of "The Beggar's Opera" as a mezzo-soprano. This was followed by an appearance as the grandmother in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984). Lansbury had also begun work for television, appearing in a television film with Bette Davis titled "Little Gloria... Happy at Last" (1982). She followed this with an appearance in CBS's ' (1983), later describing it as "the most unsophisticated thing you can imagine". A BBC television film followed, "A Talent for Murder" (1984), in which she played a wheelchair-bound mystery writer; although describing it as "a rush job", she agreed to do it in order to work with co-star Laurence Olivier. Two further miniseries featuring Lansbury appeared in 1984: "Lace" and '.