Play for Today – three words that will resonate powerfully with anyone who has a sense of British television’s heritage. The BBC’s pioneering single-drama anthology, which ran from 1970 to 1984, is remembered for its social comment and artistic experimentation, and for giving a (nearly) free rein of expression to such greats as Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh, Carol Bunyan, Paula Milne, Willy Russell, Julia Jones and Alan Bleasdale.
But not everyone was a fan, and after Margaret Thatcher’s landslide election victory in 1983 amid increasing attacks on the BBC, the writing was on the wall for a drama slot regularly accused of left-wing bias (sound familiar?). It was cancelled the next year.
Now, 5, with its customary chutzpah, has revived the sainted anthology. Its new series of four productions begins tonight with Never Too Late, starring Nigel Havers and Anita Dobson, and co-written by up-and-coming dramatist Lydia Marchant. Thankfully, the new Play for Today already has a more diverse authorship than the white male-dominated original – only 20 of the 306 plays were scripted by female writers, and far fewer by authors of colour.
If this welcome revival can speak to contemporary Britain with the power, wit, originality and eloquence of its namesake predecessor, then it will have been long overdue. It was a hard job whittling down this selection, but here are seven of the best original BBC productions.
Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971)
Writer Jeremy Sandford made his name with the 1966 drama Cathy Come Home, which is credited with changing attitudes towards homeless people (and which was shown on The Wednesday Play, as Play for Today was known before a scheduling shift necessitated a change of title).
In another indictment of society’s treatment of its poor and dispossessed, Sandford lived as a homeless person for two weeks before writing this Bafta-winning tale of the homeless and alcoholic Edna. Patricia Hayes, then a regular on The Benny Hill Show, was inspired casting as the titular 60-year-old, bringing a welcome comic touch to her otherwise rude and aggressive character as she is shunted from a doss house to hospitals, psychiatric wards, and even prison.
Withnail & I fans might like to see if they can spot actor Vivian MacKerrell, the model for Richard E Grant’s dissipated Withnail.
Streaming on YouTube. Available to buy on Prime Video
Abigail’s Party (1977)
The most famous Play for Today is a straightforward adaptation of Mike Leigh’s stage hit at the Hampstead Theatre. In a 180-degree role reversal from the previous year’s Nuts in May, in which she played a sweetly nerdy camper, Leigh’s then-wife, Alison Steadman, portrayed the monstrous hostess Beverly.
It plays out as a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in 1970s Britain, as ex-cosmetics demonstrator Beverley scores points off her estate agent husband Tony (Laurence Moss), flirts with their guest Tony (John Salthouse) and dominates the gathering with her opinions and musical taste (famously Demis Roussos). And of course, the titular party – held by divorcee guest Sue’s 15-year-old daughter, Abigail – happens off-screen.
Dennis Potter thought it was rather snobbish, calling the play “a prolonged jeer … about the dreadful suburban tastes of the dreadful lower middle classes.” Either way, Steadman’s compelling portrayal of Beverly seared its way into the cultural landscape.
Available to buy on Prime Video
The Black Stuff (1980)
A number of these single plays were turned into TV series, including Gangsters, Philip Martin’s tough exploration of organised crime in Birmingham, and Rumpole of the Bailey, with Leo McKern as John Mortimer’s bulbous-nosed barrister. But none left their mark as deeply as Alan Bleasdale’s tale of Liverpudlian tarmac-layers on a mishap-laden job in Middlesbrough, and which would go on to spawn the 1982 series Boys from the Blackstuff.
The later series depicted the effects of unemployment on the characters – including Michael Angelis as Chrissie Todd, Tom Georgeson as Dixie Dean and Bernard Hill as Yosser Hughes, with his iconic cry of “Gizza job!”. It’s notable, however, that in the original play, Yosser is a far less sympathetic character, full of angry misogynistic machismo. As Bleasdale himself said, “I actually think Yosser becomes a better man the madder he gets.”
Available to buy on Prime Video
Blue Remembered Hills (1979)
Taking its title from an AE Housman poem about nostalgia and growing old, Dennis Potter’s drama unfolds over the course of one summer afternoon in 1943 as a group of seven-year-olds play in the Forest of Dean.
What everyone remembers about Potter’s ambivalent look at childhood is how all the kids were played by adults – an extraordinary cast that includes Helen Mirren, Robin Ellis (then a heartthrob following his title role in Poldark), actor-satirist John Bird, and regular Play for Today writer Colin Welland. Filmed on location in Dorset and entirely from the point of view of the children, the drama ends in tragedy and innocence forever lost.
Available on YouTube and Prime Video
Sunset Across the Bay (1975)
With Talking Heads, Alan Bennett came to specialise in poignant scripts featuring the elderly – and his elegiac 1975 Play for Today could be viewed as a companion piece to his later monologues.
Gabrielle Daye and Harry Markham play characters known only as “Mam” and “Dad” (loosely modelled on Bennett’s own parents), who have moved out of inner-city Leeds for what turns out to be a less than idyllic retirement beside the sea in Morecambe. Dad can’t even buy his local Leeds newspaper, while Mum is disconcerted by the milkman offering yoghurt. A return to Leeds is, however, out of the question, as their old street is torn down to make way for urban regeneration.
Available on Prime Video
Scum (1979)
Artistic freedom may have been a watchword at Play for Today, yet two dramas proved beyond the pale even for the anthology’s liberal overseers: Brimstone and Treacle, Dennis Potter’s 1977 play conflating sex, satanism and disability, and Roy Minton’s Scum.
An unsparing depiction of life in the borstal system for young offenders, where order is maintained through violence and intimidation, Scum gave a breakthrough leading role to Ray Winstone. He plays Carlin, whose progress is followed from new arrival to top dog – or “Daddy” as it’s styled here. Deemed too controversial by BBC management, it was remade as a film for cinema, while the original drama was effectively banned from broadcast until 1991, when it was finally screened on Channel Four as part of a season on the theme of censorship.
Streaming on BFI Player and Apple TV
Leeds – United! (1974)
The sort of drama that burnished the anthology’s reputation as a left-wing soapbox, this was a recreation of a 1970 strike in which 30,000 Leeds clothing industry workers (mostly women) came out for a gender-equal shilling-per-hour increase, before being undermined by their own union.
Filmed in a documentary-style black and white, the drama exposed the factories’ sweatshop conditions, although the union and employers accused writer Colin Welland (the future Oscar-winning writer of Chariots of Fire) of bias and inaccuracy. And while the real-life strikers were supportive, they criticised the swearing attributed to women workers – an issue that unfortunately threatened to obscure the political message.
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Welland’s mother-in-law was involved in the 1970 dispute, and the writer conducted lengthy interviews with the strikers. The crowd scenes included many of the actual workers, too, while among the professional actors, the future Coronation Street regular, Lynne Perrie, had a pivotal role.
Available to buy on Prime Video
‘Play for Today’ starts tonight at 9pm on 5 with ‘Never Too Late’
