Alan Clarke
Director
Play for Today (1970)
Season 2
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
S2E1 - Traitor
A British aristocrat turned Russian spy is visited in Moscow by Western journalists
Oct. 14, 1971, midnight
S2E2 - Edna, the Inebriate Woman
Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a British television drama written by Jeremy Sandford which was transmitted by the BBC as part of the Play for Today series on 21 October 1971. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Irene Shubik produced it.
The play deals with an elderly woman, Edna, who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money. A rambling, pathetic yet defiant woman, Edna sleeps rough and begs for food and shelter and the drama follows her progress as she moves from hostel to hostel, going to a psychiatric ward and then prison along the way. Jeremy Sandford, who had previously written Cathy Come Home, researched the play by living rough himself for two weeks.
A great deal of the dialogue and the incidents in the play come from the book, 'Down and Out in Britain' published by Jeremy Sandford in 1971; although the majority of the speakers in the book are male, Jeremy Sandford puts much of their speech into the mouth of the female character.
The film features the o
Oct. 21, 1971, midnight
S2E3 - Evelyn
Frank is worried that he's over the hill when he reaches his 38th birthday. Conversations with his wife, lover and best friend do nothing to allay his concerns.
Oct. 28, 1971, midnight
S2E4 - O Fat White Woman
The wife of a headmaster discovers that he has been physically abusing his students
Nov. 4, 1971, midnight
S2E5 - Thank You Very Much
A social satire in which advertisers realise that having a blind beggar as the public face of charities would help make them seem more appealing to donors.
Nov. 11, 1971, midnight
S2E6 - Michael Regan
A man gets revenge on a pub owner
Nov. 18, 1971, midnight
S2E7 - Skin Deep
An awkward relationship develops between the families of a trade unionist and the regional manager when the son of the former wins a university scholarship from their employer.
Nov. 25, 1971, midnight
S2E8 - Pal
Two sworn enemies, one black and the other white, are forced to confront their prejudices when they are forced together by circumstance.
Dec. 2, 1971, midnight
S2E9 - The Pigeon Fancier
A retired miner devotes his waking hours to his racing pigeons.
Dec. 9, 1971, midnight
S2E10 - Home
A story about four elderly "loonies" living in a rest home
Jan. 6, 1972, midnight
S2E11 - Still Waters
A marriage can be lonely when the children have left home, as Nelson and Maud find out. Maud leaves in the middle of an unloving picnic, and Nelson follows - both sharing their stories with a series of strangers.
Jan. 13, 1972, midnight
S2E12 - Stocker's Copper
In Cornwall, just before World War I, a striking miner befriends a cop
Jan. 20, 1972, midnight
S2E13 - The House on Highbury Hill
A married couple move into the house on Highbury Hill and find some eccentric neighbours.
Jan. 27, 1972, midnight
S2E14 - In the Beautiful Caribbean
A story about unemployment and the Black Movement in Jamaica
Feb. 3, 1972, midnight
S2E15 - Ackerman, Dougall and Harker
A salesman learns a few lessons from the locals when he goes to Yorkshire for a business course
Feb. 10, 1972, midnight
S2E16 - The Villa Maroc
A couple and their daughter take a trip to Africa
Feb. 17, 1972, midnight
S2E17 - Cows
A social worker tries to help a painfully shy young man and takes him for a visit to a country farm.
Feb. 24, 1972, midnight
S2E18 - A Time to Keep
None
April 27, 1972, midnight
S2E19 - The Fishing Party
The adventures of three Derbyshire miners going fishing
June 1, 1972, 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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