Horace is a 1972 television play written by Roy Minton

Roy Minton

Roy Minton is an English playwright best known for Scum and his other work with Alan Clarke. He is notable for having written over 30 one-off scripts for London Weekend Television, Rediffusion, BBC, ATV, Granada, Thames Television and Yorkshire Television, including Sling Your Hook, Horace, Funny...

 and directed by Alan Clarke

Alan Clarke

Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...

, first broadcast as part of BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

's Play for Today

Play for Today

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...

series on 21 March 1972.

Plot

Diabetic Horace (Barry Jackson) is mentally impaired and works in a joke shop. He befriends loner schoolboy, Gordon Blackett (Stephen Tantum) who retreats from his loveless home into an imaginary world.

The play was later developed as a six part half hour series for Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...

.