David Edgar has observed that, although the theatre version has been placed in the lineage of the “rather inaccurately dubbed ‘state-of-England’” plays by Brenton, Hare, Barker, Griffiths and himself, the television version reflected the influence of the school of social realist drama that was associated with Ken Loach, Roy Battersby and Tony Garnett, which was more “grittily proletarian” and which echoed the British New Wave cinema of the early 1960s.1 Neither Edgar nor Matheson can recall who first suggested that Destiny be adapted as a television play,2 but Edgar recalls that, in a script meeting with himself and Newell, Matheson asked, “So, what are we telling the nation here?” For Edgar this demonstrates what “we thought we were about in the 70s […] not asking ‘how will the viewer respond to this?’”3 This reflects its era, with producers and creative personnel having control of decision making, in stark contrast with the later Birt-era move towards pleasing the consumer. Such engaged, high-minded ambition was made possible by settled scheduling which, as Matheson argues, allowed Play for Today to build a regular audience who, for half of the year, “knew they would get something distinct and surprising once a week.”4
David Edgar, email to Tom May, 21 November 2016. ↩
Ibid. Edgar already knew Margaret Matheson through her husband David Hare. ↩
wr. Watson Gould
pr. David Rose
dr. Michael Simpson
NUTS IN MAY (13 Jan 1976)
wr. Mike Leigh
pr. David Rose
dr. Mike Leigh Nuts in May was released on DVD by the BBC/2Entertain in 2011 (as part of Mike Leigh at the BBC)
DORAN’S BOX (20 Jan 1976)
wr. Eric Coltart
pr. David Rose
dr. Matthew Robinson
Recording does not exist
PACKMAN’S BARN (27 Jan 1976)
wr. Alick Rowe
pr. David Rose
dr. Chris Menaul
A STORY TO FRIGHTEN THE CHILDREN (3 Feb 1976)
wr. John Hopkins
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Herbert Wise
THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND (10 Feb 1976)
wr. Tom Hadaway
pr. Anne Head
dr. Brian Parker
JUMPING BEAN BAG (17 Feb 1976)
Introduction by David Rolinson (for BFI Mediatheque) [no link possible – visit Mediatheque]
wr. Robin Chapman
pr. Rosemary Hill
dr. Alan Cooke
CLAY, SMEDDUM AND GREENDEN (24 Feb 1976)
wr. Bill Craig (novels Lewis Grassic Gibbon)
pr. Pharic Maclaren
dr. Moira Armstrong
LOVE LETTERS ON BLUE PAPER (2 Mar 1976)
wr. Arnold Wesker
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Waris Hussein
WILLIE ROUGH (9 Mar 1976)
wr. Bill Bryden
pr. Pharic Maclaren
dr. Bob McIntosh
TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS (16 Mar 1976)
wr. Beryl Bainbridge
pr. Kenith Trodd
dr. Claude Whatham
THE PEDDLER (23 Mar 1976)
wr. E.A. Whitehead
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Claude Whatham
EARLY STRUGGLES (30 Mar 1976)
wr. Peter Prince
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Stephen Frears
BRIMSTONE & TREACLE (6 Apr 1976 slot – not transmitted)
(Not transmitted until 25 Aug 1987) Essay by Cat McKiernan
wr. Dennis Potter
pr. Kenith Trodd
dr. Barry Davis Brimstone & Treacle was released on DVD by the BBC/2Entertain in 2004
DOUBLE DARE (6 Apr 1976)
wr. Dennis Potter
pr. Kenith Trodd
dr. John Mackenzie
BAR MITZVAH BOY (14 Sep 1976)
wr. Jack Rosenthal
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Michael Tuchner Bar Mitzvah Boy was released on DVD by Acorn Media in 2012 Bar Mitzvah Boy was released on blu ray by the BFI in 2022 (as part of Play for Today: Volume 3)
BET YOUR LIFE (21 Sep 1976)
wr. Les Blair
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Les Blair
ROCKY MARCIANO IS DEAD (28 Sep 1976)
wr. Bernard Kops
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Graham Evans
THE ELEPHANTS’ GRAVEYARD (12 Oct 1976)
wr. Peter McDougall
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. John Mackenzie The Elephants’ Graveyard was released on DVD by John Williams Productions in 2007 (on its own and as part of The Peter McDougall Collection) The Elephants’ Graveyard was released on blu ray by the BFI in 2021 (as part of Play for Today: Volume 2)
HOUSEWIVES’ CHOICE (19 Oct 1976)
wr. Roy Kendall
pr. Kenith Trodd
dr. Chris Thomson
YOUR MAN FROM SIX COUNTIES (26 Oct 1976)
Introduction by David Rolinson (for BFI Mediatheque) [no link possible – visit Mediatheque]
wr. Colin Welland
pr. Kenith Trodd
dr. Barry Davis Your Man from Six Counties was released on blu ray by the BFI in 2020 (as part of Play for Today Volume 1)
BUFFET (2 Nov 1976)
wr. Rhys Adrian
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Mike Newell
The Other Woman, Nuts in May, Brimstone & Treacle, The Elephants’ Graveyard and Your Man from Six Counties were available on BBC Store but it closed on 1 November 2017. Note that some titles that were previously available via BBC Store, and some others, are now available to buy to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
For researchers interested in these plays and their archival status, we strongly recommend the BBC drama research guide available here from Kaleidoscope.
Updates:
29 April 2015: simplified layout; added producer credits; checked archival status; added DVD availability.
8 June 2015: minor format corrections.
10 July 2016: updated release information; minor format standardisation; added ‘go to’ link.
25 February 2017: checked latest BBC Store release information: added Brimstone & Treacle release information; tidied presentation of BBC Store information.
12 April 2017: added BBC Store availability of Your Man from Six Counties.
12 June 2018: replaced ‘Episodes’ with ‘Episode guide’; standardised presentation of adapted books in Clay, Smeddum and Greenden; removed BBC Store release information from individual entries and noted its closure.
14 October 2020: updated DVD/blu ray release information; added Amazon note.
16 October 2020: added Mediatheque cross-references.
3 March 2023: updated blu ray release information.
ORKNEY: A TIME TO KEEP/THE WHALER’S RETURN/CELIA (13 May 1971)
wr. John McGrath (stories George Mackay Brown)
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. James MacTaggart Essay by Oliver Wake
THE RANK AND FILE (20 May 1971)
Essay by John Williams
wr. Jim Allen
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Kenneth Loach The Rank and File was released on DVD by the BBC/2Entertain/Sixteen Films in 2011 (as part of Ken Loach at the BBC.
THE MAN IN THE SIDECAR (27 May 1971)
wr. Simon Gray
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. James MacTaggart Essay by Oliver Wake
No recording exists
wr. Jeremy Sandford
pr. Irene Shubik
dr. Ted Kotcheff Edna, the Inebriate Woman was released on blu ray by the BFI in 2022 (as part of Play for Today: Volume 3)
EVELYN (28 Oct 1971)
Essay by ‘Mr Wolf’
wr. Rhys Adrian
pr. Graeme McDonald
dr. Piers Haggard
Traitor and Edna, the Inebriate Woman were available on BBC Store but it closed on 1 November 2017. Note that some titles that were previously available via BBC Store, and some others, are now available to buy to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
For researchers interested in these plays and their archival status, we strongly recommend the BBC drama research guide available here from Kaleidoscope.
Updates:
27 April 2015: simplified layout; added producer credits; added DVD availability.
8 June 2015: minor format corrections; added ‘go to’ links.
10 July 2015: updated release information; minor format standardisation.
25 February 2017: checked latest BBC Store release information; no additions required since 2016 check but tidied presentation of BBC Store information.
12 June 2018: replaced ‘Episodes’ with ‘Episode guide’; removed BBC Store release information from individual entries and noted its closure.
10 January 2020: added ODNB link for Philip Saville piece.
14 October 2020: added Amazon note.
16 October 2020: added link to Alan Clarke section; repaired Philip Saville ODNB link.
3 March 2023: updated blu ray release information.
Play for Today Writer: Rhys Adrian; Director: Philip Saville; Producer: Irene Shubik
“I have a great fondness for the past, the way things were.”
The Foxtrot offers further proof of the wide variety of approaches and subject matter in Play for Today: a self-aware sex comedy about a ménage-a-trois between Michael Bates, Donald Pleasence and Thora Hird is far removed from the intensity and political commitment of plays from the same period such as When the Bough Breaks and The Rank and File. However, newspaper reviews were mixed – stressing its strengths and weaknesses, praising some elements and criticising what some saw as its self-awareness and obscurity. Given that some reviewers used The Foxtrot to question the very purpose of Play for Today as a strand, the following essay uses newspaper reviews of The Foxtrot – depending more heavily on reviews than the site’s essays usually do – in order to trace some of the ways in which Play for Today was a contested space.1
The essay’s focus is on reviewers’ contestation but subsequent studies should develop the idea, at the very least into archival holdings on audience and institutional responses. ↩
Play for Today Writer: Rhys Adrian; Director: Piers Haggard; Producer: Graeme McDonald
‘How old do you think I am? Go on – guess…’
In contrast to a lot of the heavier entries in Play for Today, Evelyn is a bit of a volte face, especially given its transmission just one week after that of Jeremy Sandford’s cause celebre Edna the Inebriate Woman. Produced in much the same whimsical vein as writer Rhys Adrian’s previous Play for Today script (The Foxtrot), it arguably provided a neat counterpoint to the more po-faced ‘serious’ plays on offer throughout the rest of 1971’s run. Starting life as a radio play, winning author Rhys Adrian the Prix Italia in 19701, it is – at its most basic – almost exclusively a series of dialogues. While this displays all the hallmarks of a potentially stultifying ‘art’ film (setting one’s early warning system twitching like a pair of clackers) it is, in fact, quite a clever little script and can lay claim to (mostly) excellent performances and sympathetic and unobtrusive direction. This is also one of those Play for Todays that, despite being repeated twice, is little remembered. It does not slaughter sacred cows or storm barns and it is neither revolutionary nor a catalyst for a kneekjerk bout of social outrage from publicity-seeking backbench MPs. It is quite simply a gentle ‘situation comedy’, centered around a forty year-old man’s extra-marital affair and, as such, would never be given the chance of even a footnote in any serious research of the single play. By ‘situation comedy’ I, of course, mean that any amusement value is derived purely through the characters and their situation and not that it is part of the ‘Sorry I didn’t hear you Vicar – my knockers must need a good seeing to’ school of comedy…
Evelyn by Rhys Adrian, produced by John Tydeman, BBC. RAI prize for literary or dramatic programmes: Prix Italia, Florence, 1970. See link. ↩
