British Television Drama

‘You dirty old man!’: masculinity and class in Steptoe and Son (1962-74)

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

by David Rolinson

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s Steptoe and Son (1962-74): on 5 January 1962, the BBC broadcast ‘The Offer’, the Comedy Playhouse one-off that led to the series that started later the same year.¹ It’s a landmark series, and it’s a shame that, like Z Cars earlier this week (2 January), its 50th anniversary hasn’t seen an official BBC commemoration, especially since repeats have done good business for BBC Two even in recent years.² [Ironically, as far back as 1967, Dennis Potter defended TV from "familiar growls from those letter-writing viewers who regard any re-run of a programme which they have already seen as an affront almost too great to be endured": noting recent repeats of everything from Harold Pinter to Steptoe and Son, he noted that repeats "can be valuable", for programme-makers, for viewers and also for critics to "add a few second (or even second-hand) thoughts to their initial assessments".³ This note added 25 January 2012.] To be fair, such anniversary celebrations are usually reserved for programmes that are still ongoing, and the BBC has shown some awareness that Galton and Simpson are among the greats of British television writing – they did at least get their own Arena tribute not that long ago.⁴ The anniversary provides a welcome prod to revisit the series, and I’m sure I won’t be the only one starting a rewatch this week. In the meantime, this site now presents an essay celebrating some of the series’ ideas and themes, trying to do some justice to the quality and depth of the writing. Read more... (5700 words, 3 images, estimated 22:48 mins reading time)

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Posted in David Rolinson, Essays

Tagged British New Wave, Galton and Simpson, John Sullivan, Steptoe and Son

The Singing Detective 25th anniversary event (10 December 2011)

Posted on December 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

by David Rolinson

“in keeping with the modernist sensibility and self-reflexivity of Hide and Seek and Only Make Believe, the decision to root a view of the past in the experiences and imagination of a writer protagonist, emphasises the fact that, far from being an objective assessment, any perspective on history can only ever be subjective” – John R. Cook.¹

This one-day symposium, staged by Royal Holloway University of London, celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Singing Detective (1986).² It paid tribute to the serial’s “narrative complexity, generic hybridity and formal experimentation” and placed writer Dennis Potter’s contribution alongside the contributions made by his collaborators, several of whom were present: producer Kenith Trodd, choreographer Quinny Sacks and actors Patrick Malahide and Bill Paterson.³ Other guests included Peter Bowker (as a modern television writer inspired by Potter), plus academic speakers and, mixing practitioner and academic perspectives, Professor Jonathan Powell, who was Head of Drama at the BBC when The Singing Detective was made. This mixture of academic and practitioner perspectives has been a welcome and often rewarding feature of British television drama conferences in recent years: see, for instance, the conference proceedings published as part of British Television Drama: Past, Present and Future.⁴ Read more... (6759 words, 13 images, estimated 27:02 mins reading time)

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Posted in David Rolinson, Essays

Tagged 1980s, Blackpool, Complex narrative, Dennis Potter, Doctor Who, Emergency Ward 9, Jon Amiel, Jonathan Powell, Kenith Trodd, Missing Believed Wiped, Peter Bowker, The Singing Detective

Rumpole of the Bailey (1975)

Posted on November 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

by John Wheatcroft

Play for Today; Writer: John Mortimer; Director: John Gorrie; Producer: Irene Shubik

‘There is a golden thread running through British justice…’¹

Horace Rumpole is one of those great fictional characters who emerged fully formed, with the potential to run and run.

Like Sherlock Holmes, William Brown and Bertie Wooster, he burst on the scene with virtually all his key character traits established. The barrister whom we meet in the first Rumpole of the Bailey is fundamentally the same man readers and viewers were to follow through numerous television series and radio plays, many volumes of short stores, and a handful of novels. You can even read Rumpole in posh Folio Society editions.

Within a few minutes of the original Play for Today, first broadcast on 16 December 1975, we were introduced to some trademark Rumpole quirks and foibles. He quotes at length his favourite poet, Wordsworth, from Quiller-Couch’s Book of English Verse, refers to his wife, Hilda (Joyce Heron), as “She Who Must Be Obeyed” and wistfully recalls, as he will do so often in the years to come, his triumph as a young barrister in the Penge Bungalow Murders case.

Rumpole, unlike John Mortimer who was a QC, never took silk. He never prosecutes and often takes on (and wins) apparently lost causes, when everything is against him from overwhelming evidence favouring the prosecution to quixotic judges who take a dim view of the barrister’s irreverent and down-at-heel charm.

Read more... (1714 words, 2 images, estimated 6:51 mins reading time)

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Posted in Essays, John Wheatcroft

Tagged 1970s, Irene Shubik, John Gorrie, John Mortimer, Play for Today, Rumpole of the Bailey

Scene vs. Scene #1: Assassins vs. Gangsters

Posted on September 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

by David Rolinson

Doctor Who: ‘The Deadly Assassin’ Part 3 vs. Play for Today: ‘Gangsters’

‘Scene v. Scene’ is a series of articles aiming to shed new light on key scenes from television dramas by comparing them with scenes from other programmes or films. This isn’t just about pointing out ‘influences’ or comparing styles or tagging intertextuality (although those things might happen sometimes), and also is a more bloggy, less academic approach than usual on this site – however, the case studies will be chosen to also raise wider issues about television drama. This is true of the case studies in this first article, two-aquatic punch-ups: the Doctor’s fight with Goth in part 3 of Doctor Who’s ‘The Deadly Assassin’ (BBC1, 13 November 1976) and Kline’s showdown with Rawlinson in the Play for Today (in effect series pilot) Gangsters (BBC1, 9 January 1975). They have a lot in common, both on- and off-screen. Read more... (2803 words, 15 images, estimated 11:13 mins reading time)

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Posted in David Rolinson, Essays

Tagged Alastair Reid, Censorship, David Maloney, Doctor Who, Gangsters, Mary Whitehouse, Philip Martin, Philip Saville, Robert Holmes

John Sullivan

Posted on September 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

by David Rolinson

After passing away in late April, writer John Sullivan (1946-2011) was paid tributes by many people from different walks of life, who reminisced about his great shows and great moments. Inevitably the long-running Only Fools and Horses (1981-2003) was central to those tributes, as so many of us remember visits to the Nag’s Head like reunions with friends, and can trace our lives with memories not just of the show but of the circumstances in which we watched it. Sullivan wrote some of television’s finest and most popular comedy series, but even that isn’t high enough praise. Sullivan’s best work belongs in the lineage of the great writers who inspired him, such as Johnny Speight and Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Like them, Sullivan reflected everyday life back at his audience with respect for their experience and intelligence, and the audience’s recognition of truth produced not only laughs for his one-liners and set-pieces but also an emotional commitment and sense of social awareness of the kind critics usually associate with genres other than this less critically-respected popular form. He was a television writer in its purest sense, and in the ways by which we define key television playwrights: he mastered a genre whilst refining its capabilities and playing to his audience’s awareness of its functions, and for a while became as visible a “name” – whose credit on a programme produced certain expectations – as any more vaunted auteur. At his peak – surely the 1980s, given that unbroken run of success that included the early years of Only Fools and Horses plus Just Good Friends (1983-86) and Dear John (1986-87) – he changed the way we speak to each other. Read more... (3373 words, 5 images, estimated 13:30 mins reading time)