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Play for Today

Season 9 1978 - 1979

  • 1978-10-17T11:00:00Z on BBC One
  • 1h 15m
  • 1d 2h 15m (21 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
  • English
  • Drama
Single drama's potential to engage mass audiences with social comment and artistic experimentation.

21 episodes

Season Premiere

1978-10-17T11:00:00Z

9x01 Nina

Season Premiere

9x01 Nina

  • 1978-10-17T11:00:00Z1h 15m

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

1978-10-24T11:00:00Z

9x02 Victims of Apartheid

9x02 Victims of Apartheid

  • 1978-10-24T11:00:00Z1h 15m

9x03 A Touch of the Tiny Hacketts

  • 1978-10-31T12:00:00Z1h 15m

A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.

9x04 Dinner at the Sporting Club

  • 1978-11-07T12:00:00Z1h 15m

A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club

1978-11-14T12:00:00Z

9x05 Donal and Sally

9x05 Donal and Sally

  • 1978-11-14T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1978-11-21T12:00:00Z

9x06 Sorry

9x06 Sorry

  • 1978-11-21T12:00:00Z1h 15m

Consists of two plays ""Audience"" and ""Private View"" about a brewery worker and writer who incurs the wrath of the autocratic government

1978-11-28T12:00:00Z

9x07 Butterflies Don't Count

9x07 Butterflies Don't Count

  • 1978-11-28T12:00:00Z1h 15m

'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. Once you start to question - you're finished.'

1978-12-05T12:00:00Z

9x08 Soldiers Talking Cleanly

9x08 Soldiers Talking Cleanly

  • 1978-12-05T12:00:00Z1h 15m

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.

1978-12-12T12:00:00Z

9x09 One Bummer Newsday

9x09 One Bummer Newsday

  • 1978-12-12T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-01-02T12:00:00Z

9x10 The Out of Town Boys

9x10 The Out of Town Boys

  • 1979-01-02T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-01-09T12:00:00Z

9x11 Vampires

9x11 Vampires

  • 1979-01-09T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-01-16T12:00:00Z

9x12 The Chief Mourner

9x12 The Chief Mourner

  • 1979-01-16T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-01-23T12:00:00Z

9x13 Waterloo Sunset

9x13 Waterloo Sunset

  • 1979-01-23T12:00:00Z1h 15m

A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian

1979-01-30T12:00:00Z

9x14 Blue Remembered Hills

9x14 Blue Remembered Hills

  • 1979-01-30T12:00:00Z1h 15m

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 turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again."

1979-02-06T12:00:00Z

9x15 Who's Who

9x15 Who's Who

  • 1979-02-06T12:00:00Z1h 15m

A story about a dinner party given by the managers and employees of a brokerage house.

1979-02-13T12:00:00Z

9x16 The Last Window Cleaner

9x16 The Last Window Cleaner

  • 1979-02-13T12:00:00Z1h 15m

The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""

1979-02-27T12:00:00Z

9x17 Ploughman's Share

9x17 Ploughman's Share

  • 1979-02-27T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-03-06T12:00:00Z

9x18 Degree of Uncertainty

9x18 Degree of Uncertainty

  • 1979-03-06T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-03-13T12:00:00Z

9x19 Light

9x19 Light

  • 1979-03-13T12:00:00Z1h 15m

1979-04-10T11:00:00Z

9x20 Coming Out

9x20 Coming Out

  • 1979-04-10T11:00:00Z1h 15m

A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life

Season Finale

1979-07-24T11:00:00Z

9x21 Don't Be Silly

Season Finale

9x21 Don't Be Silly

  • 1979-07-24T11:00:00Z1h 15m

A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.

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