Play for Today - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Play for Today is a British television

British television

Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...

anthology drama series, produced by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

and transmitted on BBC1

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...

from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television play

Television play

From the 1950s until the early 1980s, the television play was a popular television programming genre in the United Kingdom, with a shorter span in the United States. The genre was often associated with the social realist-influenced British drama style known as "kitchen sink realism", which depicted...

s, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

History

The strand was a successor to The Wednesday Play
The Wednesday Play
The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...

, the 1960s anthology series, the title being changed when the day of transmission became variable. Popular works screened in anthology series on BBC2

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

, like Willy Russell's Our Day Out
Our Day Out
Our Day Out is a television play about deprived children from Liverpool in the United Kingdom. It was written by Willy Russell and first aired on 28 December 1977, at 9pm on BBC2...

(1977), were repeated on BBC1 in the series. The producers of The Wednesday Play, Graeme MacDonald

Graeme MacDonald

Graeme MacDonald was a British television producer and executive....

and Irene Shubik

Irene Shubik

Irene Shubik is a British television producer, notable for her contribution to the development of the single play in British television drama. Beginning her television career at ABC Television, she worked on Armchair Theatre as a story editor where she devised the science fiction anthology series...

, transferred to the new series. Shubik continued with the series until 1973 while MacDonald remained with the series until 1977 when he was promoted. Later producers included Margaret Matheson and Richard Eyre

Richard Eyre

Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...

(1978-80).

Plays covered all genres. In its time, Play for Today featured contemporary social realist dramas

Social realism

Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...

, historical pieces, fantasies, biopics and occasionally science-fiction (The Flipside of Dominick Hide
The Flipside of Dominick Hide
The Flipside of Dominick Hide is a British television play first transmitted by the BBC on 9 December 1980 as part of the Play for Today series....

, 1980). Most pieces were written directly for television, but there were also occasional adaptations from other narrative forms, such as novels and stage plays.

Writers who contributed plays to the series included John Osborne

John Osborne

John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....

, Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter

Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...

, Stephen Poliakoff

Stephen Poliakoff

Stephen Poliakoff, CBE, FRSL is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britain's foremost television dramatists.-Early life and career:...

, David Hare

David Hare (dramatist)

Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

, Willy Russell, Alan Bleasdale

Alan Bleasdale

Alan Bleasdale is an English television dramatist, best known for writing several social realist drama serials based on the lives of ordinary people.The Bleasdales live in prescot,liverpool,wales and london.-Early life:Bleasdale is an only child; his father worked in a food factory and his mother...

, Arthur Hopcraft

Arthur Hopcraft

Arthur Hopcraft was an English scriptwriter, well known for his TV plays such as The Nearly Man, and for his small-screen adaptations such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Hard Times, Bleak House, and Rebecca...

, Alan Plater

Alan Plater

Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...

, Graham Reid

Graham Reid (writer)

Graham Reid is a playwright from Belfast, Northern Ireland.-Background:Born into a working class family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Reid left school at age 15, served in the British army, married young, but returned to education and graduated from Queen's University in 1976...

, David Storey

David Storey

David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....

, Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies (writer)

Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...

, Rhys Adrian

Rhys Adrian

Rhys Adrian Griffiths was a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his radio plays, which are characterised by their emphasis upon dialogue rather than narrative.-Radio dramatist:...

and John Hopkins

John Hopkins (writer)

John Richard Hopkins was an English film, stage, and television writer.Born in southwest London, he graduated from St Catharine's College, Cambridge...

. Several prominent directors also featured, including Stephen Frears

Stephen Frears

Stephen Arthur Frears is an English film director.-Early life:Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s...

, 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...

, Michael Apted

Michael Apted

Michael David Apted, CMG is an English director, producer, writer and actor. He is one of the most prolific British film directors of his generation but is best known for his work on the Up Series of documentaries and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.On 29 June 2003 he was elected...

, Mike Newell

Mike Newell (director)

Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. After the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Newell became the third most commercially successful British director in recent years, behind Christopher Nolan...

, Roland Joffe

Roland Joffé

Roland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada...

, Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

, Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...

, and Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh

Michael "Mike" Leigh, OBE is a British writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and studied further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s...

. Some of the best remembered plays broadcast in the strand include Edna, the Inebriate Woman
Edna, the Inebriate Woman
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....

(1971), The Foxtrot
The Foxtrot
The Foxtrot is a television play by Rhys Adrian, first broadcast on BBC One in 1971 as part of the Play for Today strand. It is notable as an early example of the series' departure from socially aware, issue-based drama towards comedy and non-naturalism.-Synopsis:The play is a domestic drama...

(1971), Home
Home (play)
Home is a play by David Storey. It is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is only revealed gradually as the story progresses.The five characters include seemingly benign Harry, highly opinionated Jack, cynical Marjorie, and flirtatious Kathleen...

(1972), Bar Mitzvah Boy
Bar Mitzvah Boy
Bar Mitzvah Boy is a British television play, written by Jack Rosenthal and originally transmitted in the Play for Today anthology series on BBC1...

(1976), Abigail's Party
Abigail's Party
Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television written and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s...

(1977), Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30, 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....

(1979) and Just a Boys' Game
Just a Boys' Game
Just a Boys' Game is a 1979 Play for Today written by Peter McDougall and directed by John Mackenzie.It features Frankie Miller, Gregor Fisher, Ken Hutchison and Hector Nicol....

(1979). Certain other well known plays, including Penda's Fen
Penda's Fen
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.-Plot summary:...

(1974), Nuts in May
Nuts in May
Nuts in May is a television film devised and directed by Mike Leigh, originally broadcast as part of the BBC's Play for Today series on 13 January 1976. It is the comical story of a nature-loving and rather self-righteous couple's exhausting battle to enjoy what they perceive to be the idyllic...

(1976), were commissioned by David Rose

David Rose (producer)

David E. Rose is a retired television producer and commissioning editor.Following war service as a RAF pilot of Lancaster Bombers on 34 missions, he trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Drama, but following graduation pursued a career in stage management...

of the BBC's English Regions Drama department based in Birmingham

Pebble Mill Studios

The BBC 's Pebble Mill Studios were located in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham, England. The views from the roof overlooked Cannon Hill Park, a nature centre, as well as Birmingham's city centre...

.

Some installments in the series spun off into full-blown series. Probably the two best-remembered examples of this are Rumpole of the Bailey
Rumpole of the Bailey
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer which starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an ageing London barrister who defends any and all clients...

, which was produced as a one-off in the Play for Today strand in 1975 and three years later became a series for Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

with the same star, Leo McKern

Leo McKern

Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...

, and Gangsters
Gangsters (TV series)
Gangsters is a British television series made by the BBC and shown from 1975 to 1978.Created by Philip Martin, and produced at the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham by David Rose, Gangsters began televisual life as an edition of Play for Today in 1975, followed by two series transmitted in...

, and a single series of science fiction-based plays styled as Play for Tomorrow
Play for Tomorrow
Play for Tomorrow is a British television anthology science fiction series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 in 1982. It spun off from the anthology drama series Play for Today after the success of The Flipside of Dominick Hide on that strand...

.

There were also some groups of plays transmitted that — for various reasons — did not go out under the Play for Today banner, but which were funded from the same department, used much the same production team and are generally regarded in episode guides and analysis as being part of the Play for Today 'canon'.

Controversies

Two plays were controversially pulled from transmission shortly before broadcast due to concerns over their content: these were Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle
Brimstone and Treacle
-Potter on Brimstone and Treacle:In 1978, Potter said:I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated...

in 1976 and Roy Minton's Scum
Scum (tv play)
Scum is a television play written by Roy Minton and directed by Alan Clarke. It was intended to be screened as part of their Play for Today series. Instead the production was banned by the BBC after it was completed in 1977; it was not finally screened until 27 July 1991. In the meantime a...

the following year. In the case of Brimstone and Treacle it was due to concerns over the play's depiction of a disabled woman's rape at the hands of a man who may or may not be the devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

, and with Scum the worry was its supposed sensationalism of life in a young offenders' institution (then still known as a borstal

Borstal

A borstal was a type of youth prison in the United Kingdom, run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously delinquent young people. The word is sometimes used loosely to apply to other kinds of youth institution or reformatory, such as Approved Schools and Detention Centres. The court...

). Scum and Brimstone and Treacle were eventually transmitted, although in the meantime both had circumvented their withdrawal by being re-made as cinema films. Several plays using The Troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

in Northern Ireland as a theme were commissioned but were not produced.

The series as a whole was viewed with suspicion by rightwing commentators and critics as many of the issues tackled were the subject of political controversy. Of particular note was the 1978 play "The Spongers" an ultimately tragic tale of benefit dependency set against the Queen's Silver Jubilee the previous year. This suspicion was lampooned in the TV series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin is a series of novels which developed into a British sitcom starring Leonard Rossiter in the title role...

when Play For Today was listed by Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms such as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.-Career:...

's character Jimmy in his famous "Forces Of Anarchy" diatribe.

Demise

The programme officially ended in 1984, although there was one further series not broadcast in its original name but in its replacement name Screen One and Screen Two in 1985. The general trend in 1980s television production was away from one-off plays and towards a concentration on series and serials. When one-offs were produced, such as the Film on Four
Film4 Productions
Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel 4. The company has been responsible for backing a large number of films made in the United Kingdom. The company's first production was Walter, directed by Stephen Frears, which was released in 1982.- History :Before 1998, the...

on Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

, they tended to be made with a cinematic approach rather than betraying television drama's roots in the theatre that Play for Today and the earlier series had often demonstrated.

Nonetheless, the series is generally remembered as a benchmark of high-quality British television drama, and has become a byword for what many continue to argue was a golden age of British television. In 2000, the British Film Institute

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

produced a poll of industry professionals to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes

100 Greatest British Television Programmes

The BFI TV 100 is a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute , chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened....

of the 20th century, and five of the programmes included in the final tally were from Play for Today. Some of the better-known plays in the series, such as "Abigail's Party

Abigail's Party

Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television written and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s...

", "The Black Stuff

Boys from the Blackstuff

Boys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2....

", "The Flipside of Dominick Hide

The Flipside of Dominick Hide

The Flipside of Dominick Hide is a British television play first transmitted by the BBC on 9 December 1980 as part of the Play for Today series....

" and a couple of the Potter plays, have been made available on VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

and DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

.

A new programme publicised as a return of Play for Today, but under the working title of The Evening Play, was announced at the beginning of March 2006, but nothing has been heard from it since. Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...

, film star and director of the Old Vic

Old Vic

The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

, in March 2008 told BBC News

BBC News

BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

that he would like to see the return of the show,
but the Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

Michael Gove

Michael Andrew Gove, MP is a British politician, who currently serves as the Secretary of State for Education and as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Surrey Heath constituency. He is also a published author and former journalist.Born in Edinburgh, Gove was raised in Aberdeen...

and journalist Mark Lawson

Mark Lawson

Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...

expressed disagreement, Gove describing them as "exercises in viewer patronisation". Jan Moir in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

wrote in support of Spacey, saying "the British loved Play for Today once, and would do so again. A good piece of drama looks at the human condition, and tells us something we should know about ourselves."

Plays for Today on DVD

By Peter McDougall:

Just Another Saturday
The Elephant's Graveyard
Just A Boy's Game

By Jack Rosenthal:

The Evacuees
Bar Mitzvah Boy
Spend Spend Spend

By Jim Allen:

The Rank and File

By Alan Clarke:

Scum

By Mike Leigh:

Hard Labour
Nuts in May
The Kiss of Death
Abigail's Party
Who's Who?
Home Sweet Home

By Dennis Potter:

Brimstone & Treacle
Blue Remembered Hills

By Jeremy Paul & Alan Gibson:

Flipside of Dominick Hide
Another Flip for Dominick

By Leon Griffiths:

Dinner at the Sporting Club

External links

TV Cream's Play for Today website, containing good synopses of most episodes
for Today site
Play for Today section at the BFI
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

's Screenonline
Screenonline
Screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
Archive status of Play for Today at lostshows.com
Kettering Magazine Issue #4 contains a history of the much underrated role of comedy in the Play for Today strand.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Controversies

Demise

Plays for Today on DVD

See also

External links