Freddy

Have a look at

Star Trader and Action TV Online Homepage

On the left hand navigation have alook at Special Guides, The Wednesday Play.

EXcellent section.

Freddy

The world wags on.

Dai Bando

Thanks for that Geoffers, I'll set the sky box so i don't forget.

bhowells

I loved Jeremy Sandfords "Edna The Inebriate Woman." saw that as an eleven year old but I apprecaited it despite my tender years.

I was far too young to appreciate, "Cathy Come Home," in 1966 but I saw it ten years later on an archive night on BBC and loved it.

Anyone remember Jonathan Millers treatment of,"Alice In Wonderland, I note from reading the entry in Haliwells tele guide that Ravi Shanker provided the music for this production.

Dai Bando

Wasnt there one that featured a lesbian story line. I was quite young in the Play for Today years (8 or 9 ish) and I didnt know lesbians existed. This sounds nieve I know but remember in these those days we were shielded from the real world and thats what made Play for today great,the fact that it opened our eyes to reality.

I also loved the Bar mitzvah boy. Who played his sister. She used to be in lots of things at the time. Pretty good actress.

Steve Crook

Adrienne Posta. A pretty good actress

Steve

sippog

Made in 1969! One of the very few available as an official DVD release from the BFI.

lupinpooter

The Golden Vision (1968) d. Ken Loach is on BBC4 on Mon 18 August 2008 at 21:00

lupinpooter

This is exactly what people are harking on about when they bemoan the demise of the single play: the loss of new voices on prime time TV. Not only do we have fewer single plays now (about 26 per year commissioned by the BBC according to their head of drama, and fewer than one a month on ITV and Channel 4), but the ones we do have are always by big name writers and directors. If you look around for serious drama by new writers/directors, there is some (Channel 4's "Coming Up" season for instance), but it's shown in the middle of the night when about five people are watching! The BBC encourage writers to submit scripts, but not with a view to producing those scripts: the talented ones are put to work on soaps and formulaic series like Holby. When you read what TV execs have to say about it, it's a bunch of defensive flannel: apparently soaps now do what Play for Today used to do

Lord Lionheart

Anyone remember one about an old lady, can't remember all the details but she had a pet budgie, in the end someone hung the budgie, or left it hanging on an inside washing line to torture the old lady?? Vague I know, but I was a kid at the time and was probably shocked by the image. Anyone????

Dai Bando

This is really interesting. I sent a script to the BBC once and became very disillusioned to find as you say they dont make things from new writers. When Thames commissioned Lynda La Plante to write Widows she had never written anything before and that proved incredibly successful. You only have to read the entries on this thread to know what an impact Play for Today had on us all.

If TV execs think soaps cover these types of topics they should look at what audience they are aiming at. When storylines get too heavy in Eastenders the average viewer either complains or switches off eg Max being buried alive and Stella abusing Ben. Imagine if due to financial hardship Bianca chose to kill herself and her kids with a laced hot drink, (I can hear the phones ringing from here).

lupinpooter

That is a pity: did you have any luck elsewhere? Surely as Britain's primary public service broadcaster the BBC has a responsibility to bring new writing to our screens?


I'd be interested to know how many complaints the BBC got about those storylines: I bet it was a tiny, tiny percentage of the total and as such the BBC should beware of underestimating its audience. I can see where these TV execs are coming from, in that soaps are one of the few ways you can still reach a mass audience, but the way that controversial subjects are dealt with in soapland hardly bears comparison with the memorable TV plays like Cathy Come Home. For example, the recent(ish) Eastenders storyline involving Steven Beale's mental illness was feeble, if not outright irresponsible. Compare with the David Mercer/Ken Loach 1967 play "In Two Minds" which explored the same issue in a truly intelligent, innovative and socially responsible way and the whole "soaps do what Play for Today used to do" argument goes tits up!

I realise that times have changed, the audience has fragmented, and drama is incredibly expensive to produce, but I do think there's a case to be made (on PSB grounds) for bringing back a Play for Today type drama strand that showcases new writers/directors and isn't shown at stupid o'clock in the morning. It won't happen though. There's no way the BBC would give producers the freedom they had in the 60s and 70s, sadly.

sippog

The BBC did commission a series of single dramas recently but most of them are apparently languishing in 'development hell'. As one of the commissioned writers said: it's easier to get a feature film made.

I think the virtue of the old style BBC was that certain producers ( like Kenneth Trodd) who worked within the corporation did have the power to green light projects on their own initiative. The new devolved Beeb has taken that power away - everything is decided by committees who consider projects brought to them.

Since their primary role is to bank-roll projects, their primary consideration is financial (i.e. market share, viewing figures etc).

The old way was really elitist of course but it did on occasion allow a few talented individualists to exercise their taste and instincts on our behalf. Not everything about the Reith mentality was bad.

lupinpooter

Good point about Reithian elitism, but without an element of that, we'd surely end up with an unvarying diet of lowest common denominator crud. Some might say we've already got that, but I still think that the PSB channels produce a lot of first rate programmes in spite of the focus-group approach to programme planning that seems to be a feature of more recent years.

Is a return to "producer power" possible, or even desirable, do you think?

winsfordtown

Does anybody recall a Play For Today from either 1970 or 1971. It began with a montage of Leeds United's six goals in a FA Cup tie with Sutton United however I'm certain the play had nothing to do with football one it started. I've gone through the Play For Today list but nothing rings a bell. Has anybody ideas?

Steve Crook

I was there that day when Leeds came to Sutton
But I never knew it was in a Play for Today

Steve