Alan Clarke
Director
Play for Today (1970)
Season 9
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.
Released Oct. 15, 1970
Episode 75 min
None+
Keywords: tmdb.anthology, tmdb.based-on-play-or-musical, imdb.low-budget-tv-series, imdb.play-today, imdb.fun, imdb.live-for-today, imdb.rhyme-in-title + 7 more, imdb.three-word-title, imdb.anthology, imdb.play, imdb.theater, imdb.anthology-series, imdb.satire-comedy, imdb.1970s
Network: BBC One
Country: United Kingdom
Languages:
English
S9E1 - Nina
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
Oct. 17, 1978, midnight
S9E2 - Victims of Apartheid
George, a black South African, finds it hard to settle down in London after his experiences in South Africa.
Oct. 24, 1978, midnight
S9E3 - A Touch of the Tiny Hacketts
A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.
Oct. 31, 1978, midnight
S9E4 - Dinner at the Sporting Club
A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club
Nov. 7, 1978, midnight
S9E5 - Donal and Sally
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.
Nov. 14, 1978, midnight
S9E6 - Sorry
Consists of two plays ""Audience"" and ""Private View"" about a brewery worker and writer who incurs the wrath of the autocratic government
Nov. 21, 1978, midnight
S9E7 - Butterflies Don't Count
"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."
Nov. 28, 1978, midnight
S9E8 - Soldiers Talking Cleanly
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.
Dec. 5, 1978, midnight
S9E9 - One Bummer Newsday
What happens to provincial journalists when there's nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?
Dec. 12, 1978, midnight
S9E10 - The Out of Town Boys
"This could be a bit special, Maggie. This could be the first case of an office block falling down during the topping-out party."
Jan. 2, 1979, midnight
S9E11 - Vampires
Three boys watch horror films on late night TV and see a man in a local cemetery whom they believe to be a vampire.
Jan. 9, 1979, midnight
S9E12 - The Chief Mourner
For a successful man with public responsibilities Alan Berry is strangely reluctant to help the police when his wife is murdered.
Jan. 16, 1979, midnight
S9E13 - Waterloo Sunset
A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian
Jan. 23, 1979, midnight
S9E14 - Blue Remembered Hills
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
Jan. 30, 1979, midnight
S9E15 - Who's Who
A story about a dinner party given by the managers and employees of a brokerage house
Feb. 6, 1979, midnight
S9E16 - The Last Window Cleaner
The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""
Feb. 13, 1979, midnight
S9E17 - Ploughman's Share
"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."
Feb. 27, 1979, midnight
S9E18 - Degree of Uncertainty
"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."
March 6, 1979, midnight
S9E19 - Light
A village in Cheshire. A deserted cinema. A poet murdered by Stalin. A blown fuse. Victor Silvester. Pickets on trial. Trimmers and fishwires.
March 13, 1979, midnight
S9E20 - Coming Out
A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life
April 10, 1979, midnight
S9E21 - Don't Be Silly
A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.
July 24, 1979, midnight
Network: BBC One
Episode Runtime: 75 min.
Season Runtime: 23550 min.
Released: Oct. 15, 1970
Last Air Date: Feb. 5, 1985, midnight
Status: Ended
Certification: NR
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