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Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
1970
A man tries to break the world's record for nonstop piano playing
A couple look for the proper school, not for their children but for themselves.
""The Lie"" refers to the 8-year marriage of a couple who are constantly hurting each other.
A man claiming to be an angel enters the household of a bored housewife and teaches the family a few lessons.
A man is made redundant but can't bring himself to let anyone know, plunging into a web of deceit as he keeps up the charade he is still in work.
A man has a mid-life crisis in his brother's pub where sees life as a game show
A newly-appointed knight finds his celebrations cut short by someone who was witness to his treachery during the war.
A TV host and his architect brother attend their father's funeral
A woman living in a country cottage thinks that someone is trying to get her.
A petty thief and social misfit finagles his way into a church congregation
A civil servant working abroad revisits his old school
A cynical student has a radically different view of life from his landlady, leading to conflict. Matters come to a head when he sleeps with her fourteen-year-old brother.
A couple are distressed by the changes in their adopted teenage son when he joins a biker gang.
An old couple refuse to move when they find out that they can't take their piano with them
Billy, a self-employed coal-shoveller, gains a seedy business partner and competition in the form of a rival coal-shoveller.
A man who attempted suicide by jumping out a window is saved only to live in a coma, in which he has fantasies about his relatives and nightmare creatures.
Charges that the Rev 'Red' Reddick is exploiting his youth club members leads to an explosive confrontation.
An odd menage a trois results when a woman and her lover are visited by her long-lost husband
When an injured baby arrives at the hospital, a social worker looks for the parents
A trilogy of plays--A Time to Keep, The Whaler's Return, and Celia--exploring the life of the islanders in the past and present
The story of the Pilkington glass workers strike of 1970
A succesful novelist Edith lives with her husband and his friend, but she decides to ask the friend to leave.
The story of a disintegrating marriage told through family photos
1971
A British aristocrat turned Russian spy is visited in Moscow by Western journalists
Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a British television drama written by Jeremy Sandford which was transmitted by the BBC as part of the Play for Today series on 21 October 1971. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Irene Shubik produced it. The play deals with an elderly woman, Edna, who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money. A rambling, pathetic yet defiant woman, Edna sleeps rough and begs for food and shelter and the drama follows her progress as she moves from hostel to hostel, going to a psychiatric ward and then prison along the way. Jeremy Sandford, who had previously written Cathy Come Home, researched the play by living rough himself for two weeks. A great deal of the dialogue and the incidents in the play come from the book, 'Down and Out in Britain' published by Jeremy Sandford in 1971; although the majority of the speakers in the book are male, Jeremy Sandford puts much of their speech into the mouth of the female character. The film features the only notable acting role of British actor Vivian MacKerrell, the real-life inspiration for the character Withnail in Withnail and I. At the 1972 British Academy Television Awards, the play won the Best Drama Production category, with Patricia Hayes receiving the award for Best Actress.
Frank is worried that he's over the hill when he reaches his 38th birthday. Conversations with his wife, lover and best friend do nothing to allay his concerns.
The wife of a headmaster discovers that he has been physically abusing his students
A social satire in which advertisers realise that having a blind beggar as the public face of charities would help make them seem more appealing to donors.
A man gets revenge on a pub owner
An awkward relationship develops between the families of a trade unionist and the regional manager when the son of the former wins a university scholarship from their employer.
Two sworn enemies, one black and the other white, are forced to confront their prejudices when they are forced together by circumstance.
A retired miner devotes his waking hours to his racing pigeons.
A story about four elderly "loonies" living in a rest home
A marriage can be lonely when the children have left home, as Nelson and Maud find out. Maud leaves in the middle of an unloving picnic, and Nelson follows - both sharing their stories with a series of strangers.
In Cornwall, just before World War I, a striking miner befriends a cop
A married couple move into the house on Highbury Hill and find some eccentric neighbours.
A story about unemployment and the Black Movement in Jamaica
A salesman learns a few lessons from the locals when he goes to Yorkshire for a business course
A couple and their daughter take a trip to Africa
A social worker tries to help a painfully shy young man and takes him for a visit to a country farm.
The adventures of three Derbyshire miners going fishing
1972
Two provincial newspaper reporters - one a young idealist starting out on his career, the other an embittered man who previously wrote for a failed national daily - swap views.
1974
About a strike in a textile factory, based on a true story
1973
Mrs Palfrey tries hard to be accepted by the other residents at the Claremont. But then she meets Ludo and a real friendship begins.
1976
A story exploring the emotions of a boy undrgoing the traditional Jewish ceremony
The story of a man serving a 30-year prison sentence for killing a cop
A story about the origin of the Stormont state
The story of Robinson Crusoe from Man Friday's viewpoint
A hippie breaks into the house of a middle-aged couple and forms a relationship with them
A man celebrating his birthday comes to appreciate the difference between media fantasy and mundane reality.
An elderly general woos a shy school teacher.
A washed-up executive is on the verge of bankruptcy.
A pregnant teenager sets about wooing a sailor in a sectarian council estate in Greenock.
A young couple have a baby boy. However, the new father doesn't take to his new position quite as well as expected.
The adventures of three Derbyshire miners going to Stratford-upon-Avon on a barge
Faced with the prospect of being sent to work abroad, Sally Brown returns home from London to Hull, to see if she still feels the same attachment for her home town - and for her old boyfriend Mike Thurlow. Will she decide to take the job abroad or return to live with Mike in Hull?
A long-married husband leaves his family for a barmaid.
A man fights council plans to demolish his home to make way for a new bypass.
The story of a defiant football manager in terminal decline
As a playwright dictates notes about his newest play to his secretary, scenes from the play are acted out.
Was this the finest hour? Sifting the truth and fiction about the Battle of Britain, Burrows and Harding give their own account of how the nation sees its heroes - and itself.
David Adler is an operator. He strips assets, other men's wives, and his oldest friend's soul - anything for a cool million.
Malcolmson spends every Sunday taking his children to the zoo, reflecting on the breakdown of his marriage and the events that brought about his divorce. Is there a chance the family can be brought back together?
The trials of an overworked and underappreciated housecleaner
"I'm the judge's daughter - I think he's a monstrous old man. I think all men who say 'I'm only doing my job' are monstrous. I've despaired of changing him. But I'd stop short of killing him."
Three underachievers have fun at a school speech day
"Fifteen years since I was forced t' leave, forced t' leave me roots, the territory of me heart." When Gerry takes his fiancée Nita home to Brighouse, what will they find?
Are Maggie and Tony using each other as a means of communicating with Dr Leafer? Or are they using Dr Leafer as a means of communicating with each other?
Edward G. is nothing like a film star; his life has been ordinary - until now. But he's just had a shattering experience. This edition is missing from the BBC archives.
The problems of four people sharing an apartment
Everyone always looked after Maureen. But her husband comes home after two years in prison and finds she has grown up and he's not ready for the change.
They no longer live together because, after 11 years, the marriage is over. So why is she always turning up to see him at the most embarrassing times? And why doesn't he send her away?
After the stillbirth of her illegitimate baby, a woman steals a baby at random and is sentenced to 9 months in prison.
Olwen lives in a tumbledown farm up in the mountains - a lonely widow, virtually a recluse. Her only human contact is with the occasional shopkeeper and young Rachel, who delivers her papers. For Rachel, her visits to Olwen are half adventure, half honest friendship. But they also mean a time to 'put aside childish things.'
The first (and last) day at work of a young apprentice in a bevelling shop at a Glasgow glass factory
"Well, I hope I won'be seeing you come home in that uniform much more. Six years - that's long enough out of any man's life." Mike's time is nearly up. The army gives him a weekend pass so he's home from Ulster to decide whether to sign on again. His parents want him to stay but he's wondering whether the family's own flare-ups aren't a bit too like the Troubles he has left behind.
After 18 years as a friar, Peter is no longer sure of his vocation. It is a happy life, maybe too much so, and now he has met Clare. Will his doubts run away with him? Runaway friars are officially "fugitives" who must be persuaded back to their order.
Eleanor is unable to communicate her inner thoughts as she's bullied at school and virtually ignored by her parents. With a mundane working existence awaiting her, she desires a chance at another life - but at what cost?
A story exploring the Birmingham underworld
Vice-Chancellor Bartley Humbolt has problems. His young university is almost bankrupt, his wife is threatening to leave him, his protége professor from industry is threatening to overshadow him, and his prestigious professor of history is threatening to resign. But Bartley is a born manipulator. And when he gives a dinner party, he has something very special in mind - for afters.
A story about an asthma sufferer
Three young students suspended from school face various problems.
A elderly couple become disillusioned when they retire to their favorite holiday resort.
One day in the life a nurse in a mental hospital
"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's walking out and he's got a week to save a marriage that he hasn't looked at in 18 years, and with it all the trappings of a good life in Maida Vale.
A young man participating in the Orange Parade in Glasgow becomes disillusioned with the pageant when he discovers its unpleasant and violent history and witnesses the participants' attacks on Catholics.
Thirty-seven men from the disputed territory of South West Africa are on trial for their lives in Pretoria, 1,000 miles from their home. They are to be tried under South Africa's Terrorism Act despite the UN ruling that South Africa must abandon its "illegal administration" of their country.
When a stockbroker loses his job, he decides to throw a party.
Two women, looking for amusement on their afternoons off, visit a drinking club.
In Belfast, a girl awaits the return of her missing father.
England, 1945-75: Builder Alfred Bagley makes a fortune, with a little help from his friends.
A comedy about the law - seen from the inside. All formality and procedure on the surface but not quite so convincing when you see the works.
Political fantasy about a fascist regime
They are all 'in' for life so the pleasures are sparse, and strictly of their own making. Their really big event is the Christmas pantomime, only this year they have lost their star. Mother Bear has escaped. Still, there is some consolation. The new arrival looks a likely Goldilocks. 'There's one or two who'll be after him,' says Woodbine - and he knows all their weaknesses.
An amateur operatic society is preparing a Gilbert and Sullivan production, and someone new is needed for the role of Jack Point - but who will break this to the veteran who's always done it?
Dean has a rare talent. He can be made happy. He exudes happiness and confidence like a rare blossom. Both Sarah in the past, and Julia now, could do this for him. But where are they now that he is alone in Battersea Park with two suitcases and no memory?
An early retirement and a seaside bungalow-for Arthur and Marion it's not a chance to miss, especially since their son is buying the bungalow. Arthur's full of plans - GCE, garden, beach-not to mention his own "bit of an interesting diversion." But after a year the delight is beginning to tarnish.
Why does Sylvia Payne , with her successful husband and luxurious home, get in such a flap about her daughter's school friend coming to visit?
Bernie gets a temporary job as an electrician during a factory's annual minimal workforce period. But what secrets is Bernie hiding, and is he really all he claims?
After ten years of trying, Lavinia, and a large team of medics, finally manage to produce a live baby. She should now be able to start living her dream, but what happens next is not at all the paradise she has been looking forward to.
Family Christmas, presents, drink, Christmas Eve at the club, Boxing Day football - but, among the celebrations, some hard home-truths.
A young farmgirl begins a romance with an artist
An elderly politician looks back over his career while being interviewed by a TV producer.
A pet shop owner forsakes his religious beliefs when his daughter gets cancer
Sauna baths are supposed to relax you, but it rather depends who you meet in there.
A group of Deptford youngsters hang about by the River Thames on a hot day. When they and some nearby dockers spot a valuable copper boiler floating in the river the two rival factions try to get at it first. The youngsters succeed, but on their way to the totter's yard they are waylaid by the adults, who take the copper off them.
Fisher is good at his job but in new circumstances that isn't enough: he has to face the risks of competition for something bigger.
Summer 1955, and pastor's son Stephen must come to terms with his own identity amid societal pressure, religious guilt and his own imaginings. Penda's Fen is a British television play which was written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. Commissioned by BBC producer David Rose, it was transmitted as part of the corporation's Play for Today series.
At the climax of the School Sports something went drastically wrong. Now, Wallace Pidgeon faces the contradictory demands of the bird-watching headmaster, his pupils, his pork-magnate father-in-law and his "child bride."
Further adventures of three Derbyshire miners
The exploitation of the Scottish land and its people from the 18th century to the present
A young man persuades a woman that he is her son.
On holiday, with his family, nothing to do and his wife ill, Sasha is only too pleased to meet again the girl he loved at 17.
The friendship of two residents of a retirement home ends up in marriage
Like alcoholism, gambling is a disease. Ches, a compulsive gambler, is sent for medical help. A wonder drug perhaps? Or hypnosis maybe? Ches finds that his psychiatrist has other ideas.
Harry Marcus is a former welterweight champion mourning the loss of the past and dreaming of a return to the glory years of boxing. When a squatter moves in next door, does he have what it takes to fulfil Harry's dreams?
Bunny’s wife thinks he is a postman, but in reality he spends his days in the Scottish hills. One day he meets Jody, a fellow walker.
When Joyce appears on the door-step she looks like the perfect 'kindly, respectable lady whom Marcia needs to look after her baby. But Joyce only seems to be the average housewife.
A young man from Belfast is sent south to stay with relatives in an attempt to keep him out of trouble.
Freddie is going through an existential crisis as everyone around him seems to doubt their own identity and the entire purpose of conversation. Surrounded by inflation and extra marital affairs, his only solace is in buffet room drinking.
In 1956 Britain staggers through crises in Suez and Cyprus while Leslie Potter pursues and marries Monica Dobbs. Twenty years later the nation has still not recovered. Neither has Leslie.
A young man's chances at romance are thwarted by his own shyness.
How Mums and Dads feel when they have one.
A quietly unhappy housewife finds a stranger in her house and is raped at knife-point by him. But when she turns to friends, neighbors and her parents-in-law for sympathy, they all seem preoccupied by other matters.
The rags-to-riches-to-rags story of a 1960s football pools winner, based on a true story
A couple receives a photograph in the mail of two girls sitting in front of a caravan and neither can identify the people or the place.
A pair of plays, broadcast over two weeks, about mining life: ""Meet the People,"" about a coal mining community preparing for a royal visit, and ""Back to Reality,"" about a coal mining disaster that brings tragedy to a community.
A pair of plays, broadcast over two weeks, about mining life: ""Meet the People,"" about a coal mining community preparing for a royal visit, and ""Back to Reality,"" about a coal mining disaster that brings tragedy to a community.
A student holds his teacher hostage in the classroom on the last day of school.
A story about school.
The story of Father Borelli who in Rome during World War II must choose between freedom and his principles
Richard Elkinson, the former stockbroker, is now running a country restaurant. His daughter decides to spring a surprise on him in an attempt to change his life for the better.
1975
A married barrister's life begins to unravel when it seems that his high-strung mistress may reveal all.
An author tells an old school chum that he is about to publish a novel revealing their old relationship.
Moss is a miser whose only love is his grandson. Then tragedy strikes, and Moss is "reborn."
An American woman corresponds with a London bookshop owner over a period of 20 years
Terry has begun to neglect his wife for a life of drinking, weight lifting, pigeon racing and other women. But when his best friend Albert returns from the navy and begins to pay Terry's wife some attention, what will be the outcome?
"You expect to face a bit of danger when you travel. Half the fun of it. But you keep cool and bluff your way out. After all, we're all British aren't we?"
A boy enjoys success in the choir until his voice breaks at puberty.
A woman goes into hospital to receive treatment for breast cancer.
A group of Asians plans to sneak into England using a fishing boat
Rumpole defends a young West Indian boy accused of attempted murder.
An aggressive lesbian disrupts the lives of those around her.
Smug married couple Keith and Candice Marie “keen exponents of their belief in organic health food, exercise and the environment” are on a camping holiday, where they find that it is not always easy to be tolerant of others when they don't share the same enthusiasms.
A long-distance lorry driver; a spaceman; a volunteer under reduced environmental conditions; a man in solitary confinement: the discomfort of these people is shared by Doran - when he can't put his finger on the panic button.
John Barrett returns to his remote hill farm after 20 years to deal with some unfinished business, and finds himself once again in conflict with the locals.
A woman encounters trouble when she arrives home late at night, but her neighbors on a nearby estate claim to have seen and heard nothing.
The fish quay is a happy hunting ground for an ambitious young rogue like Bob, who has an eye on the boss's business - and all that goes with it.
An end-of-term play with a difference as Ozzie and the boys break into a hard rock number. But even though they make the big time, success has its darker side.
A play based on three short stories about the Scottish people and their relationship with the land: ""Clay"" concerns a farmer's obsession with his fields to the exclusion of his dying wife; ""Smeddum"" is about an indomitable woman and her large family; and ""Greenden"" tells the story of an unhappy woman from the city living with her indifferent husband in the country.
Why has Sonia taken to writing letters to her husband, posted to him in the letter-box just outside their house - love letters, on blue paper, recalling with increasing vividness the early days of their courtship and marriage?
A story depicting life in a shipyard
A divorced woman is introduced to a separated man at an awkward dinner party.
One pill, and you're floating on air. A different one, and you're full of lead. Married, mortgaged, broke, a love-affair gone sour - which drug can help Alec?
A story about a father's attempts at single parenthood
A playwright spends an afternoon in a hotel room with an actress who takes on the role of call girl for research purposes.
The eldest daughter of a domineering, overprotective mother becomes engaged to an unprincipled young man who has money.
1977
A worker discovers a radioactive leak at the nuclear power plant where she works and tries to make it public knowledge.
1982
A story about a homesick Russian journalist in London at the end of the cold war
Mike and his commune have a performance of their musical theatre "Diver" at the local pub, and ITV's Beth Bailey is coming along to see it. But will Beth's visions for the play as an incitement to revolution please everyone?
Comedy of manners focusing on the bourgeois affectation and sexual frustration of a young married couple. Abigail's mother Sue is invited to take refuge from her teenage daughter's party with a neighbouring couple, Beverly and Laurence. They have also invited Angela and Tony, new arrivals in the street. Beverly plies her guests with alcohol as Sue becomes increasingly withdrawn and embarrassed by the pretentious goings-on. Slowly, marital tensions emerge and the evening is breaking up in disarray.
The story of the romance between a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl
Teenager Jimmy's life begins to unravel after the death of his father. With his mother promiscuous and his new stepfather and stepbrother difficult to get along with, he begins to fall into a cycle of petty crime and self harm.
"People coming to their first AA meeting, prosperous people, sometimes, accustomed to the best. They look round the places where we meet, and you can see them thinking: what am I doing here? I owe my life to these rooms!"
Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes the storm-clouds to gather over Medburgh Town Hall.
Three schoolteachers in Belfast give up teaching to become singers/songwriters.
"We've just got to get it right. It'll be our little secret. When all the other servants have gone out, we'll play this little game to amuse ourselves. A sort of private charade."
"Five days of darkness then. Unless you get it together we will have five days of darkness. And on the sixth day you will say, let there be light, and no doubt it'll be such an effort that on the seventh day you'll have to rest!"
A Liverpool teenager has a hectic night out on New Year's Eve.
During World War II, a young woman joins the propaganda department and makes radio broadcasts to Germany from a British country house.
A stone axehead links three couples living at different times in the same place in Wales.
The story of a single mother of four living on welfare
A story dealing with racial tensions and fascism during a by-election in a West Midlands town
When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.
The story of a well-meaning charity worker
The story of the trial of Willie Gallagher, convicted of bombing the Strabane British Legion Hall in 1976.
Out on the streets, young people looking for fun. They come together at nights to listen to their music. For as long as the song lasts, they're heroes. Three minute heroes.
Jack's obsession with the possibility of nuclear war sees him usher his family down into his home made fall out shelter after a nuclear strike hits the country. Will their time in confinement draw them together or push them apart?
A man holds a lonely vigil at the bedside of his dying father.
A family of five orphaned children are going to be split up into different homes. What will happen if the eldest is officially made their foster parent?
After giving birth to a Down's Syndrome baby, Judith decides she doesn't want to keep him. Obliged to register the birth she arbitrarily chooses John David as the name. A few months later she learns the baby has died.
In June 1940 Italy entered the war. With Britain threatened by a German invasion thousands of Italians were seized and thrown into security camps, with other friendly aliens - and Nazis.
Two years after his journey to the past, Dominick Hide has been promoted to instructor and is no longer a time traveller. Then one of his pupils, Pyrus Bonnington, goes missing during a visit to 1982 London. Hide must track him down and prevent Pyrus damaging the past, but will the temptation to re-visit his own history be too strong to resist?
Annabel, an upper-middle-class widow, falls in love with Jack, a self-made man of humble origins. Her grown-up children do not approve.
In 1959 County Antrim, two traveling evangelists help a mentally retarded teenager
Wayne goes to live with his grandfather Albert. Initial generation gap hostilities between them are eventually overcome as a mutual respect develops through a their shared love of carpentry and snooker.
Goff and Lytton have a dream - a canal boat of their own on which to cruise the inland waterways: The reality is the boatyard of Josh Adkins and a rusting hulk called Atlantis.
Devon 1940. The boys of the local public school are alerted after a German parachute drop and as members of the Local Defence Volunteers they prepare to put their youthful enthusiasm for war into practice.
Malcolm is a GP wrestling with ideas of retirement, while his wife Jo is a frustrated, would-be novelist. Together they dream of a more contented life, but are hampered by the arrested development of their children who won't leave home.
Susan and Jenny are aged 13 and 14 and in care. Jenny's mother has died, Susan hasn't seen hers for years Both influence the close, stormy relationship that develops between the two girls.
The 18th century writer Samuel Johnson writes a political pamphlet protesting the British going to war with Spain after the 1790 invasion of the Falkland Islands.
When his father leaves Belfast to seek work in England, a young man looks after his sister
A businessman tries to keep his son from finding out about an unconventional deal he and his secretary are making with a merchant bank.
1979
A fanatical Elvis Presley fan is working as a disc jockey when his idol dies
A watchmaker finds his livelihood is threatened by cheaply imported digital watches.
Budding comedians take an evening class taught by a retired performer and, for their final exam, must perform for an impresario in a nightclub.
Stephen Piper is a quiet young man. A virgin, he shows no interest in sex, and is cruelly scorned by an aggressive female neighbour when he rebuffs her advances. He lives with his mother, an overbearing woman who mocks him for being wet. But Stephen has a secret. An accurate and heartfelt depiction of the challenges he faces and a fascinating glimpse at the gender politics of the day.
In Glasgow, a young man's sole aim is to be as tough as his dying grandfather once was
A 4-year-old boy is abused by his father
Exploration of the events leading up to 1975 Spaghetti House siege in London and the motivation of its three protagonists, T-Bone Wilson, Archie Pool, and Trevor Thomas.
The story of a young man who works in a carpet factory
A teenage girl from a family of Irish Travellers is left to look after her brothers and sisters while her father is away.
What do Rose from Devon and Christina from Stuttgart have in common? And in what way is their fate linked to that of wealthy Fiona Dunkerley?
A young man quits school and joins the army.
Family picnics should not be like this: bugging devices, men with X-ray eyes. Mary doesn't understand what terrifies Simon, nor the bizarre events of the next six months.
A journalist moves to London and gets caught up in the big city and his romance with a rich debutante.
Various characters have adventures on the way to a black pudding festival in Normandy.
An Englishman's home is his castle, and Wally aims to prove it.
Weekend enlightenment seminars serve as a form of brainwashing.
Mr. Germanou arrives from Cyprus with his family to settle in England. But on his arrival he's arrested for an historical rape with seemingly no defence.
Twenty years ago, at the age of 56, this extraordinary woman became a national hero by walking from John O'Groats to Land's End. One of the last great English eccentrics (even though she was Russian) in the last days of English innocence.
The marital and career problems of a middle-aged, middle-class man in Glasgow in the 1960s
A compassionate elderly woman comes to the realization that she can no longer care for herself or others.
A story about the regulation of the bus industry in 1930
The problems of an 11-year-old boy living in the Catholic part of Londonderry
The A Shift at the MHS department store are organising a wedding gift presentation for Elaine. But what's on Miriam's mind, and why does she seem so out of sorts?
A story about the highs and lows of peacetime army life
"I dunno, years of putting up with it, waiting on you all, for what? Eh? To become a 14-stone invisible woman?"
Jan and Meg Citron are on holiday in Germany. Their car is stopped by the police. A simple traffic offence? But their seemingly innocent past is ripped open and life will never be the same again.
During World War II, an idealistic young woman joins the Army Transport Service
A writer gets involved with a Soviet dissident
1983
James Grout and Bert Parnaby are rival chairmen of a northern football club in the run-up to an important cup match. As tempers fray, retiring president Charles Lamb provides a calming voice of sanity.
Cynical teenager Andrew Groves re-evaluates his attitude to life and his parents after his sister dies in a plane crash.
When his father comes home to Belfast after more than 2 years in England, conflicts arise with Billy
After a nuclear holocaust, only a man and a woman survive in a Welsh valley.
A woman in a state of personal crisis finds it hard to communicate with her husband and family.
An expedition tracing the path of long-lost missionaries meets with tragedy in the Kalahari Desert.
A group of unemployed Oxford drop-outs living in a Brixton commune get their come-uppance by one of them.
Concerning the life of the artist Vincent Van Gogh
A man who has had a good life in England wants to retire to Jamaica, but the celebration with his daughters doesn't go as expected.
In 1940, during World War II, an officer is sent to investigate rumors of German spies in a sleepy village where various people are the victims of war hysteria
In a future society where euthansia is common, a man signs papers to have his father put down
Peter is a songwriter, while his old friend Jimmy is an A and R (Artists and Repertoire) man. But when Jimmy tries to sell one of Peter's songs, Peter is furious. Can the friendship survive?
In 1959 Ulster, a journalist witnesses the beating of a youth
A long-suffering Glasgow housewife puts up with years of her husband's violence and drunkenness - and then something happens which makes her snap and fight back.
A young woman's comfortable life is turned upside down when she has a baby.
Miss Stella Estelle is a cabaret singer in working men's clubs, and she sings songs from the 1960s to support a large and difficult family. But how long can it go on? The backdrop is a family in decay: husband out of work, wife working and still doing the domestics, daughter the singer and hopeful star, son her "manager" but in reality going nowhere. Stella plays a crummy club circuit, singing songs for oldies for £50 a night - She's never going to be a star because of her parents' short-sighted greed.
A woman returns to Belfast after ten years in England and becomes involved in the Maze prison protest.
What is the secret of Joey and Spansky's success at the races?
Matthew and his wife are deeply suspicious of psychoanalysis. It's not their sort of thing at all.
When best-selling author James Fuller Hayes comes to Glasgow to publicise his personal account of the Spanish Civil War, a surprise reunion with two of his old comrades from the Int Brigade reveals contradictory & devastating information.
Streaming availability information not available
1978
The story of two Soviet dissidents living in London and slowly coming apart under the strain of his drinking and her enforced separation from her child
George, a black South African, finds it hard to settle down in London after his experiences in South Africa.
A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.
A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club
Adolescent love can be difficult at the best of times, but Donal and Sally have special problems - problems which alarm their families and the instructors at Strathvale Centre.
Consists of two plays ""Audience"" and ""Private View"" about a brewery worker and writer who incurs the wrath of the autocratic government
"Whether priest or thespian, never once let yourself doubt that the role you're playing is real. Lead your little flock from childhood to the grave via God's sweet sacraments and let no doubts intrude - ever."
A freelance TV presenter has been hired by the BBC to film a documentary about the British army stationed in Germany. Unfortunately the budget is so low he is only allowed to film soldiers talking, and all bad language must be censored.
What happens to provincial journalists when there's nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?
"This could be a bit special, Maggie. This could be the first case of an office block falling down during the topping-out party."
Three boys watch horror films on late night TV and see a man in a local cemetery whom they believe to be a vampire.
For a successful man with public responsibilities Alan Berry is strangely reluctant to help the police when his wife is murdered.
A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian
The play activities of seven children living in the countryside during the summer of 1943 end in tragedy; the children were played by adults in childrens clothing. The title is taken from A.E. Housman's 1896 poem: "Into my heart an air that kills; From yon far country blows; What are those blue remembered hills..." It's 1943 on a summer's afternoon and 7 children play in the fields & woods of old England. The children's roles are all played by adults to act as "A magnifying glass to show what it's like to be a child." "When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the conventions and the polite forms which overlay it," he repeated the device he had introduced 14 years earlier (in "Stand Up, Nigel Barton"); children's roles were cast with adult actors in this naturalistic memory drama of a "golden day" that turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again."
A story about a dinner party given by the managers and employees of a brokerage house
The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""
"Ploughman. Nobody calls you that. You're a has-been. Your head and heart went into a museum wi' that lot you keep in there. Face it: you're redundant."
"I'm 37 years old, remember? I'm not a dead-pan, genned-up, discreetly nymphomaniac ex-head-girl like the majority of your female students. I'm an innocent. I'm vulnerable."
A village in Cheshire. A deserted cinema. A poet murdered by Stalin. A blown fuse. Victor Silvester. Pickets on trial. Trimmers and fishwires.
A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life
A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.
1981
The story of the disintegration of an aristocratic country estate after World War II
A docudrama about what would happen if London was hit by severe flooding
James, an expatriate South African anti-apartheid fighter, deals with his nightmares and his complaining landlady in a run-down area of London, while dreaming of his lover Stephen, left behind.
A nurse is subjected to an interrogation after giving medical treatment to a terrorist leader.
In Belfast, Ruby has a cold and is caught in the rain while Iris is looking for work and gets caught in traffic
In an adaptation of Václav Havel's play, a dissident, newly released from prison for political reasons, attempts to get his well-connected friend to sign a protest. In this one man play, both the roles are played by Nigel Hawthorne.
Two men on a local council fight the system when forced with massive spending cuts.
During World War II, a British officer is ordered to abandon a Russian convoy.
A manager, a foreman, and two workers are all that remains of a factory yet labor relations stay the same
A planning decision must be made, and the motorway extension must go through on either the Golf Course or the Allotments - will the greens survive or the peasant lands?
A police inspector investigates the murder of an Arab sheik who had become a village's Lord of the Manor.
Three women involved in different ways in the women's movement.
Politics and relationships during the last years of the Heath government
Meg: We were so close, we loved each other, we made a whole together. I feel cut in half.
Malcolm goes through life hating the mundanity of his existence as a factory worker and an unloved husband. But when students take up summer jobs at the factory, it reawakens both his passion for political feeling and romantic urges.
A family in Belfast deals with life after the death of the mother from cancer
Willie and his friends notice the passage of time around them, and how society is changing as their marriages stagnate. Can Willie prove to himself that he still has it, by being able to cheat on his wife just once?
Frank has dedicated 19 years to researching a cure for the common cold, and is almost ready to publish a paper. Yet budget cuts and his own inability to form real relationships with those around him threaten to derail the project.
Home Sweet Home is a 1982 television film devised and directed by Mike Leigh, for BBC TV, 'about postmen, parenthood, social workers and sex.' It was Leigh's second collaboration with Play for Today producer Louis Marks, and cinematographer Remi Adefarasin, and with composer Carl Davis - the music score featured a quartet of basses -. It stars Timothy Spall, here working with Leigh for the first time, Eric Richard, Tim Barker, Kay Stonham, Su Elliot, Frances Barber, Sheila Kelley, and Lorraine Brunning. It was first broadcast on 16 March 1982. The film was shot on location in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. 90 minutes.
"My life is over - and I just didn't notice it passing." A call to a radio helpline leads to depressed housewife Christine finding a new direction in life.
Adolescents will always be obsessed by the same old subject, even when they are educated by nuns. Six ex-Classmates meet for the first time in 12 years and hilarious memories change into highly emotional situations.
While Wally was happy there wasn't much wrong with the world, and pints seemed a small price to pay for what he gave us. But don't forget what we gave him. We gave him the knowledge he was important, at least to us.
1980
Colin Pasmore tests his strength against his family ties but finds them stronger than he ever imagined.
"In heaven there is no drama - drama depends on failure and conflict. My trade is a scrutiny of hell. For any proud dramatist his style is his prejudice."
Writer-director John McGrath deliberately shies away from naturalism in an experiment that mixes blue screen, songs, and characters realising they're acting within a play. This first of two parts sees Frank travel to a hostile London.
Kay Gilbert goes into hospital for a minor operation which goes badly wrong. This play tells the story of her fight for compensation.
What could Steve Jackson's documentary film expose that must be concealed from the African leaders meeting in Brussels? Steve Jackson is on the run and the wrong decision could prove fatal.
Twelve-year-old Jude has never met Dick, his father. One Sunday afternoon Dick impulsively engineers a meeting, which has distressing consequences.
Dominick Hide, a time traveller from London in the year 2130, is studying the city's transport system of 1980. Breaking the rules, he lands his craft to seek out his great-grandfather. Compared to his anaesthetised home, 80s London is filthy and polluted...and yet...it exudes an excitement that soon draws him in.
Clive admits himself to a psychiatric hospital after undergoing a breakdown. His wife wants him back home, but in order for Clive to be released, he has to want to be cured.
In Victorian times, a nanny cares for a mute boy, who becomes overly attached to her.
A vacation at a seaside hotel in Ireland changes the lives of four friends.
The problems of an owner of a building contractor company in Liverpool
"They're nice affable gobblers and we're in the nice affable gobbling business." Tom and Gwen soon find that their gastronomical retreat from the rat race is anything but an escape when the Porters come to dine.
"They say that in the wood you get what nearly everybody here is longing for - a second chance." J. M. Barrie's fantasy play, depicting alternative realities for its characters and their eventual return to real life.
A confused industrial dispute at a London hospital triggers off in trade unionist George Harley's mind memories of his days fighting in the Spanish Civil War, when the issues seemed so much clearer.
The head of a multinational corporation wants to do business with the Soviets
A group of men hold a reunion dinner in Tokyo
You know the nuts and bolts of our policy? To penetrate the unions. To use all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres, illegal measures, evasions, subterfuges, to carry on Communist activities inside them at all cost.
Two very different women share an office, a common enemy, and a sense of humour.
When her 17-year-old son Roy falls in love with a Muslim girl, and a Bangladeshi butcher seeks help from her husband Raji, Leela realizes that the tears and romance of Indian cinema are closer to her own life than she has ever imagined.
Six lifers living in an experimental self-rehabilitation unit attached to an ordinary prison participate in a group therapy session. All of them have spent many years in prison and have little chance of ever getting out.
An evening with the Parent-Teacher Association gets out of hand.
When the dynamic young head-master of St Peter's Primary School decides to liven up a parents' fund-raising social by hiring a Bavarian band, he little suspects the hidden passions that are about to be unleashed.
Nancy and Ella are two bored housewives starved of affection when their husbands are away on the oil rigs. The rules are simple: have some fun, just make sure nobody finds out, and you don't get emotionally involved.
It's such a simple, natural thing to have a baby, thinks Mary. But she and husband Paul are preoccupied with their careers. Can their young neighbour Tessa help - or are the emotions around a new baby more complex than anyone had expected?
Soldiers are subjected to a brutal and sadistic kind of psychological training exercise
Soldiers are captured and interrogated by terrorists: but is it real or only a sadistic form of psychological training exercise?
